CHAPTER 1
"Ripley."
The word jarred her from the reverie of gazing into the vast darkness of space and the bright pinpricks of distant stars. Beyond the transparent plasteel dome of the observation deck, the deathly quiet vacuum of space loomed. It always made her feel so small and insignificant.
She turned to the scarred face of Jarvis, his dark features crisscrossed with scars, his right eye slightly askew due to some shoddy cosmetic surgery at a far flung clinic on the outskirts of civilized space.
"Captain?"
She cleared her throat. She was uncertain which made her feel stranger, being called Ripley or Captain. Today she felt most like Newt, just a lost little girl.
"Yeah Jarvis?"
Jarvis smiled, his teeth clean and straight, odd in contrast to his scarred visage. "Everything is locked down Captain, ready for the long haul home. It's just you, me and the synth left now. I'm about to bed down."
Newt raised an eyebrow, "What are you waiting for, me to tuck you in and give you a good night kiss?"
Jarvis chuckled, "No Captain, just checking on you. You been awful quiet the last couple of cycles."
Newt patted the engineer's shoulder. "Just memories. Ghosts of the past Jarvis."
He nodded knowingly. "Even out here the past can catch up to you boss. It doesn't matter how many light years you travel, it can stay right on your tail."
"Yeah, I know. I know."
Jarvis turned on his heel and shouted back, "See you in a few months!"
Newt quietly made her way through the vast halls of the free trader Zephyr…her ship. It had a strange ring to it, "her ship." Much like the name and the title: Captain Ripley. Her first voyage without her mother, without Ellen Ripley, had gone without incident. The cargo holds were full; the coordinates to return to Gateway Station were programmed in. The small crew was tucked into their hibernation chambers and dreaming of how they would spend their profits from the journey.
On the bridge, the dim lights cast a phantom like glow on Bishop's features.
The android smiled, "A smooth first run, Newt." He was one of the few that still called her by the old nickname, but never in front of other crew members. When others were around, she was always "Captain Ripley."
"Yeah Bishop. Maybe too smooth."
"Now that is no way to think," he said, his fingers dancing across buttons and switches as he spoke. "You did well. Your mother would be proud."
Ellen Ripley had adopted Newt just a year after their return to Earth. The young Newt had hoped greatly that Hicks would ask Ellen to marry him. The gruff Marine corporal had seemed stricken with the woman he had saved on LV-426. However, he had volunteered for another tour with the Colonial Marines and then volunteered for a top secret mission to find the homeworld of the aliens. That had been almost thirteen years ago. Nobody had heard from Hicks or the other marines again, and the government considered it a classified case.
Then two years ago her adopted mother had died from ovarian cancer. Newt shook her head as she thought about it. Man could travel the stars but could still not cure cancer.
Bishop misinterpreted the shaking of her head. "Yes she would be very proud of you Newt."
Newt nodded, "Yeah. Yeah I suppose you are right."
Bishop raised an eyebrow. "Nightmares back?"
Newt sighed. Was the android psychic? Almost a week ago the dreams had strangely returned after being gone for years. Could it be the trauma from losing her mother? Part of the mourning process? Or something different? Or just a simple coincidence.
"Yes Bishop. The dreams are back. And I don't have my mommy to scare the monsters away anymore." She felt a tear roll down her cheek, surprised by its appearance.
"I'll be up. I'll keep an eye on you. I was not planning on sleeping for the return trip. Jarvis left me a maintenance checklist and I have some research I have been working on. I'll make sure no monsters hide under your bed Newt."
She bent down and hugged the synthetic. He had been like a father to her all of these years. With the settlement she had received from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, her mother had not only purchased the android but had him fully repaired. He had been Newt's constant companion. The perfect surrogate father.
As she lay down in the sleep chamber, he stood over her. Newt thought of an old saying her real father used to say to her so many years ago, "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite." As the chamber closed and she felt the artificial sleep overtaking her she wished that was the only thing she ever had to worry about, but she knew that monsters were all too real.