THE TRAVIS HICKS DIARIES

CHAPTER 4

ENTRIES 16 THROUGH 20

TO: WEYLAND/YUTANI FRONT OFFICE

FROM: SPECIAL XENOMORPH INVESTIGATION COMMITEE

SUBJECT: FINAL REPORT ON THE INCIDENTS THAT TOOK PLACE ON GIGER MOBILE SPACE COMPLEX IN THE MONTHS OF APRIL AND MAY, 2194:

THE EXPERIMENT APPEARS TO HAVE FAILED AND WE HAVE LOST ALL CONTACT WITH THE BASE. THE LAST CONTACT HAD WITH THEM WAS A COMMUNICATION WITH COLONEL EMERY ON MAY 14TH, WHERE HE MADE IT SEEM LIKE THEY WERE PREPARING FOR A FINAL STAND AGAINST THE XENOMORPHS, WHO BY THIS TIME ARE THOUGHT TO HAVE NUMBERED A MINIMUM OF TWO DOZEN. SEEING AS HIS OWN FORCES BY THIS TIME NUMBERED LITTLE MORE THAN THAT, IT´S CONSIDERED HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT ANY OF THEM HAVE SURVIVED.

RECOMMENDATION: SEEING AS THE COMPLEX WAS PLACED IN THE MIDDLE OF A DESERT AND FAR AWAY FROM ANY OF OUR OTHER BASES ON THE PLANET, THE CHANCES THAT THE XENOMORPHS WILL CAUSE DISRUPTION AT ANY OF THESE ARE CONSIDERED MINIMAL. JUDGING THIS AGAINST THE POSSIBLE LOSS OF PERSONNEL AND NOT TO MENTION EQUIPMENT IN RETAKING THE BASE, IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT THE COMPLEX IS CONSIDERED LOST AND THAT ANY RECORD OF IT´S EXISTENCE IS ERASED. AS FOR ANY POSSIBLE SURVIVORS, THEY WERE CONSIDERED EXPENDABLE, SO THEIR FATES ARE CONSIDERED TO BE OF LITTLE CONCERN TO US. COLONEL EMERY´S FAMILY HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT HE DIED IN BATTLE ON LV-113 AND THAT´S WHAT THE OFFICIAL MILITARY RECORDS WILL ALSO SHOW.

Entry #16:

May 14th, 2194

Giger Mobile Space Complex

LV-212

It´s come to where none of us know anymore what´s up and down, only that we´re all fucked by now. Biehn died yesterday in a final heroic stand, that enabled the rest of us to get away, which leaves me and Glau as the only two left from our squadron. We found Mendoza this morning with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, clutching a picture of a baby and it´s mother in his hands. My guess is that they were his wife and child, that they made him leave behind on Earth, to send him here to face certain death. He should be home right now, focusing his energy on being the best husband and father he could be to those two, but instead he had to settle for being dumped outside like a piece of garbage, after the immense pressure of knowing that he would surely die a horrible death soon, got to be too much for him.

We buried the first ones, but if we´d had to keep that up, then we would have had to keep everyone on constant grave digging duty. All we can do is try to stop the dead bodies from stinking up the med-bay, that we´ve done what we can to turn into an impenetrable fortress. Not that it will keep them out forever, but so far none of the grey skinned bastards have managed to get in yet, in spite of them banging so hard on the walls and doors, that it feels like the whole place is shaking at night. During the day, they appear to be more focused on staying out of the blistering sun, that has become an unexpected ally for us. Food and water are of course an issue for us (how I long for those days on earth, when we could drink all of the water, we wanted to!), but a strict rationing means that we should be able to hold out for a minimum of three weeks, until we start running criminally low on either.

If this isn´t hell, then I don´t know what is. The only thing that keeps me going is Glau, who´s killed more of those living killing machines, than anyone else here has. Even Emery is impressed with her tenacity and has told her, that he wished he could have had a whole army full of soldiers like her. Coming from him, that had to be quite an honor for her to hear. As for myself, my only plan is to keep on fighting for mine and her life, until there´s nothing left of me to fight back with anymore.

Entry #17:

May 16th, 2194

Giger Mobile Space Complex

LV-212

It´s been a relatively quiet day, which probably means that they´re planning something. These things clearly aren´t like most of the other Xenomorphs we´ve found, who generally behave like animals would, running solely on their instincts. They can plan and execute attacks like ambushes in ways, that I previously thought only us humans were capable of. Unlike us, though, they don´t seem to mind sacrificing one of their own for the good of the hive, as we saw once, when they brutally killed one of their own to use it´s blood to get through a metal floor. That isn´t normal behavior for any animals, I´ve heard of, although the way they hunt reminds a little, of how I was taught in Biology that some animals back on Earth would hunt together in packs and prevent their targets from escaping that way.

Glau and I have started sleeping pressed up closely against one another, and it doesn´t make it any easier to keep my promise to myself that I can smell every natural smell coming from her, when we lie there. She says that having my arms around her makes her feel safer and that´s why I agreed to do it, but my desire for her keeps growing with every waking moment, it seems. Knowing that every day could be our last also makes me think, that if it´s going to happen, then it will soon literally be now or never.

Another thing I do a lot is spend my time contemplating all of the things in my past, I would have done differently, if I had the chance to do them over again. I would have paid more attention is school for one thing and not have looked so much up to my brother, that I just had to try to follow in his footsteps. Hell, I might even have found myself a nice gal like my father did and tried to follow in his footsteps, instead of my brother´s, if him and my mom hadn´t treated me and Dwayne as so much of an afterthought in their lives. I think about him a lot too, since I know that Space Marines like him aren´t ever kept on the payroll, just to have them sitting around and twiddling their thumbs all day. Of course, he could have survived it all and while I can´t explain why, something deep within me tells that is the case for him. What I wouldn´t give right now for one last chance to hug him and tell him that I love him.

Entry #18:

May 18th, 2194

Giger Mobile Space Complex

LV-212

We´re down to four of us now: Myself, Glau, Lucassen and Emery and while none of us want to say it out loud, all of us know that it´s only a matter of time, until we´ll join the rest of our comrades in death. Emery looks set on going down in one final blaze of glory, screaming his lungs out while he fills the last of his chamber into the bodies of those monsters, who so far have seemed close to undefeatable. For every one of them we´ve taken down, it appears like two more arrive to take it´s place. That´s an easy calculation to make and not one, that makes for positive thining for any of us. We have one chance, but it´s a long shot to say the least. If we can get to the air hangar, we can board the bomber plane there and bomb the base from the air. Between there and us however, are an unknown amount of those beasts, each of which more than capable of taking out all of us, before we can do little to act against it. We can´t stay here either, that would be pure suicide, so it´s the choice between the frying pan and the fire and neither are in any way appealing options.

Perhaps that was why I gave into temptation and did the deed with Glau. I wish, I could have made it more romantic for her, but the only private place we could find (that didn´t have walls splattered in dried blood, which no doubt would have killed the mood too) was the med-bay storage room, that they had emptied out way back, when the scientist and the medical personnel left. At least there was a hospital bed for us to lie on, but I would be lying my ass off, if I said that this was how I pictured that it would go down, was it ever to happen. Now that it has, I can only say that my love for her is stronger, than it´s ever been.

It´s just a shame that all we have left to do now is to die together. Perhaps, by some divine intervention, one of us will make it, but both of us making it is too much of a long shot, for either of us to believe that it´ll happen.

If this is my last entry, then you all know what has happened to me. May the higher powers be with us, because if anyone needs their help at this time, it´s surely us.

Entry #19:

May 20th, 2194

Syndicate Base

LV-212

This is Belinda Glau, possibly (but hopefully not) the sole survivor of Giger Base writing this. I hope that Travis will wake up and recover from his injuries, but in case he doesn´t, I feel like I should finish this for him. It isn´t until now that I´ve read the pages he´s written and finding out that he loves me, like no one has before, only makes me pray even harder for his recovery. Without him, I´ll be alone alone here for the rest of my life and that´s a thought, I can´t even bring myself to consider as an option. I mean, what´s the point in living, if you´re going to spend the entire rest of your life with no company, except for yourself?

The escape from the base was so hectic, that I don´t even think I had time to be scared, since it was all about survival all of the time. Emery was the first one of us to fall to those things, even before we´d made it anywhere close to the air hangar. Facing down over a dozen of those things on his own with little ammo left, I probably would have saved one bullet for myself, if it had been me, but for him I seriously doubt that it crossed his mind a single time. They were his final enemy and by God, he was going to take as many of those sons of bitches down, as he could, before they got to him. None of us saw him die (we were too busy running for our own lives), but we could hear clearly his final scream, as it rang out into the cold, dead corridors of what he once called home.

Lucassen nearly made it there with us, until an enormous version of the monster (that Travis thought could be a queen of their species, seeing as it had also laid disgusting, huge eggs around the place), got the jump on us, along with half a dozen of it´s "children", if you can call them that. Both me and Travis tried to save her, but there was nothing we could have done. From the looks of her, she was ready to die anyway, by the time it happened to her. She was too sensitive for this line or work and even if she had survived, she most likely still would have lost her mind after the things she had seen. I´ll miss both her and Emery, now that they´re gone. He might have seemed like an unlikely candidate for it, but him and Biehn are the closest, I´ll come to having a father figure in my life and Lucassen had become a close friend by the end of her life, that was sadly cut so tragically short.

Getting to the hangar, we almost couldn´t believe our own luck, that it appeared to be deserted, but (as I had sneaking suspicion would happen) there was one last surprise waiting for us inside the bomber craft. We had already strapped in and made our ascent, when it struck against Travis first. Luckily he heard it coming, so it only wounded him, but I fear that his injuries could still be too severe for him to survive. I had to do an emergency landing or we all would have died in the crash, which isn´t easy when you also have a nine foot monster trying to eat you at the same time, I can tell you that much from experience! It came so close to killing me, that my life had already started flashing in front of my eyes, before I managed to use it´s ferociousness to my advantage and lure it into through the bomb storage chamber and into the main turbine room at the back. After getting Travis quickly strapped in again, we took flight and I blew it out of the back of the bomber with the last shell I had left in my rifle.

Seeing the base blown up was a bittersweet moment, knowing that I was the only one still standing out of all of those brave men and women, who had once made up it´s proud garrison. I thought about the friends, I´d lost. Biehn, who had taken a shy girl full of issues and helped to turn her into someone, who could stand on her own two feet. Dixon and Hanson and how they had that special connection with each other, that you only find in true best friends. Mendoza with his big mouth, that he could never back up, when it came down to it, which only made me like him more, whenever it happened.

I keep reminding myself that they died, so I could live, and it helps to prevent too many thoughts of taking my own life from entering my mind. Being here, in a place where it´s like the fear and terror of what happened here has become part of the structural foundation, doesn´t help either, but if I try to make contact with others, then there´s a good chance that I´ll be turned in and executed by the army, since I´m officially a fugitive in their eyes. Maybe the Syndicate will return here, and I can join them, but I would honestly prefer it, if my fighting days have come to an end. Not that I would hesitate for a second, if I saw one of those things coming for me but killing other humans like myself would seem like insanity to me, knowing that we have a real enemy, we should be joining together in the fight against, instead of wasting more lives fighting against one another.

Entry #20:

August 12th, 2194

Syndicate Base

LV-212

This will be my final entry for now. In case you were wondering who is writing this, it´s me, Travis again. It took two weeks for Belinda (we´ve started calling one another by our first names of the time now) to nurse me back to health and while it was touch and go there for a few days, I believe that it was my desire to be with her again that made me pull through in the end. After a few days of her feeling sick, we found an old pregnancy test in the med-bay here and guess what? We´re having a kid! It´s strange to think of the twists and turns life can take, but I can honestly say that this was never the outcome I expected. Not that I´m complaining though, don´t get me wrong! To me, Belinda looks more and more beautiful with each passing day and I have no doubt, that motherhood will come to suit her even more, than being a trained killing machine ever did.

No one else has come here in the near two months since we fled and Belinda bombed the hell out of our old base. I doubt that anyone will come. It doesn´t look like there´s any expensive military hardware left here and that´s usually what they go by, when deciding whether or not it´s worth it to come back to a base, they´ve had to abandon once before. With the thousands of bases that both sides have strewn around the Universe, it isn´t like losing one will make that much of a difference to them either way and it´s probably cheaper to just build and put up a new one, than it is to try to first dismantle this one and then put it up somewhere else. They still left nearly an entire dried food storage here for a whole garrisson, so food won´t be an issue for many decades to come, if not centuries, no matter how hard we choose to pig out or how many children, we end up having. I supose that they could decide to come back for their food, but with how easy it is to replace, I wouldn´t call it all that likely either.

As for the Xenomorphs, we´ve searched this place high and wide several times over and not found any trace of them. There is a slight chance of course, that one or more of them could have survived the bombardment, but if they should decide to show their grotesque looking faces here again, we´ll be more than ready to give them a warm welcome. We´ve also cleared the base of all of it´s dead bodies and cleaned it down the best we could, to where it´s almost starting to feel like a real, proper home for us. If I can live out the rest of my life here with her, I would no doubt die as a happy man.

THE END

Hi, everyone, it´s your humble author speaking. This is a section I usually like to do for my stories, where I explain some of the reasoning behind the story and unveil the many references in the story to you.

It was written over a period of four days with me writing one chapter a day. I had previously tried writing an Alien TV series in script form around a year ago, but it completely tanked (the only time that´s happened for me), so I quickly abandoned it, although I did end up re-using many of the ideas for it for this one, in particular the parts that involved the war between Weyland/Yutani and The Syndicate, as well as the backstory of the main character Travis, although he had a different name and was much older in his "original version" and not related to Hicks from "Aliens". The idea to write it as a sort of diary comes from one of my favorite books, the World War one book "All Quiet on the Western Front", where the narrator describes his experiences in much the same way, I tried to write it here. Not that this story was in any way on the same level as the book that inspired it, but I´m more or less satisfied with how it turned out, especially considering that this was the first time, I´d attempted a project like this.

References, Nods and Homages within the story:

Edwards Space Station: The space station where Travis grew up was named after legendary bad film-maker Ed Wood, who gave us the funniest (even if it wasn´t entirely intentional on his part) Sci-Fi movie of all time: "Plan 9 from Outer Space".

The idea that every squadron was made up of a dozen convicts, who had this or the death penalty to choose from: That part came straight from the old war movie "The Dirty Dozen", as did the choice for them to be exactly a dozen in each squadron.

Why I chose the name Travis for the main character: With his brother being named Dwayne, I wanted him to have a Southern US sounding name as well and since he was kind of a bad ass, who still had his heart in the right place, I named after a character similar to that: Travis Bickle from the movie "Taxi Driver".

The training facility being located in Buenos Aires: This was a nod to the movie "Starship Troopers", where several of the main characters are from there and the bombing of the city is a vital point in the movie.

Belinda Glau´s name: She was given several names, before I settled on this one, but I thought that they all (like "Pvt. Fisher" after Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), which was her original name or "Pvt. Cameron" (as a nod to James Cameron, who was the man behind the making of "Aliens")) either seemed like it was too obvious or like it didn´t really fit her character. That´s when I remembered Summer Glau, who played the character River Tram in "Firefly" and it´s follow up movie "Serenity", and right away it felt like I´d found the right name for her. It´s original sounding, short, easy to remember and at the same time a small nod to one of the best Sci-Fi TV series, that only lasted one season.

Corporal Biehn: He was named after Michael Biehn, who played "Dwayne Hicks" in "Aliens". Again, I wanted it to be a name you don´t hear all that often and it made for a nice little homage to a man, who was an integral part of both the "Alien" and "Terminator" franchises.

The Syndicate: This was a small Star Wars homage; in that they were both named and to some small extent shaped after the "Hutt Syndicate" from that franchise.

Lucassen´s name: I wanted the names of the other soldiers to reflect, that now our heroes were on the base on LV-212, that also meant that they were part of an even more "international" army, than they were before and Lucassen (which means "Son of Lucas" in old Flemish) is a rather common last name in the Benelux countries. Likewise, the name Mendoza was chosen, because it´s one of the most common surnames in South America, where they did their training. It was also a small homage to George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars. Waldau and Bjornsson were named after a few of the best known "International Actors" from "Game of Thrones". Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (who played "Jamie Lannister") and Hafthor Julius Bjornsson (who played "The Mountain").

Emery´s Name: Colonel Emery was named after actor and real-life war hero F. Lee Emery, who´s best known for having played the drill sergeant in "Full Metal Jacket". He would also clearly have been my first choice for the role, if this had been a movie.

The Giger Mobile Space Complex: This was named after H.R. Giger, whose artwork became a huge part of the whole presentation of especially the first movie in the series, as well as the look of the "Monster" itself. And again, it was also that I wanted it to have a non-English sounding name, to give the base more of that "international feel".

THAT´S IT, FOLKS!

THANKS FOR READING THE STORY AND I WOULD LOVE IT, IF YOU LEFT A COMMENT ON IT