CHAPTER 1
Mary hit the device with her right hand. The green screen flickered but she continued seeing five white dots, twenty meters ahead. Despite her small constitution; she struggled as she crawled through the vent. "Damn rats" she cursed. The bulky device made her movements inside the air ducts difficult and what she wanted least was to go deeper and get stuck in a place where no one could reach her.
Mary Coles worked as pest control technician in the terraforming colony. She used an Arious motion tracker in search of rats inside the complex ventilation system. Rats had adapted well to space and as their counterparts from Earth, rats stowed away in colony ships and infested the new colonies, chewing vital systems and causing trouble. The dots on the screen were big; Mary pulled an electric baton from her bag, with the intention of stun and possibly kills the big pests.
-"Those rats are big, I hope this can stun them before one of those pests can bit me" she said. It was well known rats were prone to bite when they felt trapped.
The vents were dark; there was no point in installing lights in there. Mary illuminated the tunnel with her flashlight and saw she almost stumbled onto a shaft, she peered down and in the partial darkness she saw a fan spinning. Carefully, she passed the hole but when she was crossing one of her feet slipped and she almost fell into the fan.
-"Godaaaaam!" she exclaimed, hanging from the vent's edge, with the motion tracker hanging from her shoulder. "I hate this fucking job!"
Carefully, she managed to climb the edge of the shaft and pushed herself with her arms; Safe. I would be more careful next time.
The conduct turned to the right and after five meters it turned to the left. Mary heard the muffled noise of a running fan. "There must be a colony nesting in the ventilation shaft" She thought "Damn rats, I hope I can fit through there"
She checked the baton's battery, "good, full charge" and crawled chest down for an opening, when she came out in the ventilation junction, she let out a scream, thinking she'll be in a tiny space with dozens of furious rats.
-"Surprise, you moth–!" she stopped midsentence.
Instead of the usual debris, pieces of cloth and paper and stale food characteristic of rats' nests, the small cubicle was filled with candy boxes, a plush cushion, blankets and other objects. Mary noticed a plastic doll and some necklaces hanging from a screw. But what had made Mary turn off the electric baton was a little girl dressed with a greasy, dark green pants and brown long sleeve shirt, sat on the far side of the room.
-"Jesus Christ, Newt! I almost hit you with this thing." She exclaimed. "What the Hell are you doing here?"
-"This is my secret clubhouse, none of the other kids know about it, not even my brother" Newt responded.
-"This place is dangerous; you can fall though one of the shafts, end up in the sub-basement or threshed by a fan." Mary scolded her.
-"I'm sorry, but I just want to win" Newt said, kind of embarrassed "No one can fit here, except Casey and Me"
-"Casey?" Mary asked "Who's Casey?" Mary asked; there were a few more than a hundred and fifty colonists living in the complex and Mary didn't know someone called Casey.
-"My doll," Newt pointed to the blonde plastic doll she had seen earlier.
Rebecca "Newt" Jorden was the youngest child of wildcatter Ann and Russ Jorden, she was well known by every colonist in Hadley's Hope because she was the very first baby born there in 2173. Any other child older than six years had arrived along their parents in cryostasis on the colony ship, including Newt's brother Timmy.
Everyone addressed Rebecca by the nickname Newt because she was small, and slippery. One moment she was there, and the next she wasn't, for her parent's annoyance, especially when her mother wanted to scold her.
-"Okey, C'mon girl, you and Casey needs to get out here before a rat bits you" Mary said "That's my job, Kill the rats on the air ducts. They can bit and give you rabies, you know?"
-"They teach that on the school."
-"And why did you made your clubhouse here anyway? Why not in your room? Or inside the community center?" She continued.
-"This is my secret hiding place, it's how I win in 'Monster Maze'" Newt said proudly.
-"Monster Maze? What the Hell is Monster Maze?" Mary asked.
-"It's a game, it's like Hide and Seek, one kid is the monster and chases the others inside the ventilation system" Newt explained, and before Mary could ask more, she continued "Aaron Lydecker said it's from a book, a terror book about a monster in a spaceship or something."
-"Aren't you too little for horror story books? It will give you nightmares, Newt" Mary said.
-"I'm six, and monsters didn't exist. At least, it's what mommy said: There are no monsters, not real ones at least."
-"Good to know it, C'mon Newt; you shouldn't be here anyway and your mom would be worried about you." She was impressed by the girl's maturity, he could be six years old but he behaved like an adult.
-"This way, Operations is over there" Newt said, pointing at a grate covered opening.
June 19th, 2179. Hadley's Hope terraforming colony Operation's center, LV-426, Zeta2 Reticuli
The wind chimed even through the Plexiglas windows of the primary operation center. Administrator Al Simpson barely can see the imposing outline of the atmospheric processor almost a mile away.
Hadley's Hope was one of the terraforming colonies funded co-jointly by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation and the Extrasolar Colonization Administration. Named after his founder, Curtis Hadley, the colony was at the time of it's funding on the outer rim, one of the farthest human outpost only surpassed by the mining outpost of Thedus, where the atmosphere processors were built, and another colony in Aurigae constellation –Origae-6 –239 light years from Earth.
Al Simpson pressed a button and the windows shutters descended. Winds on LV-426 were strong, and carried a lot of dust and debris, these dust would erode the Plexiglas is uncovered. Fortunately, the wind on the tidally locked moon blew from only one direction and the colony's storm wall protected it from the worst of the storm.
-"Signal's good?" he asked the communications tech.
-"A little fuzzy but it's coming through" the technician responded.
-"Good, let's see what those assholes on Earth have for us now" Brad Lydecker, the assistant manager said.
Every Saturday the colony received a transmission from Earth, including everyday mail, legal forms, news and orders from the company or the ECA. It was routine, because there was not much to do in a backwater colony in the less populated side of the outer rim.
For some strange reason, Wey-Yu offered funding to those colonists which were brave enough to settle in what was known as the Bermuda triangle of space. Ships had disappeared here since the first days of human colonization: the most recent was the tragic destruction of Sevastopol station in the neighboring system of Zeta1 Reticuli, during a decommissioning accident.
Curtis Hadley was a bold wildcatter and ghost stories and conspiracies didn't scare him, so he and a bunch of other colonist took their chances and settled here. For twenty years, they had tamed partially the unstable moon and now they had a breathable atmosphere. It will take another decade to clear the skies and grow crops outside.
The main communications antenna in the outskirts of the settlement aligned in the direction of Earth's, screens shown a series of ones and zeroes and them, the words INCOMMING TRANSMISSION appeared in yellow letters. Simpson read the messages labeled as top priority, there was one from a company representative; Simpson read it.
Sent: June 12th, 2179 Received: June 19th, 2179
To: Al Simpson, Administrator
From: Carter J. Burke, Special Projects Director. Weyland-Yutani
Subject: New orders, Investigate coordinates.
Simpson, how's the weather there? I have new orders from up here; they want you and your team of wildcatters to investigate a set of coordinates.
Lat: 23°45'33''N Lon: 26°52'44''W Right on the Illium Range. Last resupply ship detected a magnetic anomaly and seismic activity. It could be a new kimberlite pipe or another titanium deposit, the company wants to check it out. Don't worry about the rights, your team would get the usual shares.
Report any new discovery.
"Damn company" Al thought. The colony satellite network surrounding the moon doesn't worked in the dusty atmosphere so they have to rely on the state of the art sensors of re-supply ships in orbit, but these ships reported first to the company and then them to the colonists, snatching the discovery bonus from the righteous owner. "Typical corporate assholes" Al concluded.
Al Simpson checked the reference grid and found it was the zone claimed by couple Russ and Anne Jorden. They have been looking for mineral deposits on that part of the range. He will send them there. A short haired, brunette woman stepped inside the operations center, followed by a blonde girl with a doll clutched on his arms.
-"Mary, did you finish checking the ducts? Any severed line?" the Administrator said.
-"Yes, Simpson. No rats there, but I found something else" she said, as she stared at Newt.
Mary's job was not only disposing the rats in the ducts, she had to make sure if the little rodents hadn't chew any power line of fiberglass cable. The most important was the communication uplink and the remote control system of the Atmosphere processor. If there was an overload of the cooling systems and they weren't capable of shutting down the reactor from there, by the time a team reached the manual override, would be too late. Mary's job was important no matter how much she hated it. Al Simpson ignored Newt and ordered at a man sitting at a screen which shown the atmosphere processor's blueprints.
-"Marachuk, check the Atmosphere Processor's remote line, again."
-"All normal, Boss. Mary's right" Marachuk responded.
-"Lydecker, your kid and the others had been playing on the air ducts." Mary told the assistant administrator as he approached the technician.
-"What did Aaron do this time?" the man asked.
-"He and the other children have been playing a game called Monster Maze inside the ventilation ducts. I found Newt hiding there inside, he says it's a game based on some kind of horror novel."
Aaron Lydecker was one of the older kids in the complex, it was common he to lead another kids into trouble.
-"Oh yeah, that f#$ book. Aaron must have taken it from the shelf. A reporter wrote it in 2138, says it is based on real events about what happened to the Sevastopol station" he explained.
-"Sevastopol station?" Mary asked "Wasn't the station destroyed right on our neighborhood before the war, like… fifty years ago?
-"Yep. Reactor failure during decommission" Lydecker "Conspiracy theories about monsters and murderous androids."
-"I don't care; tell him it's fucking dangerous. I almost fell into a fan today, I'm lucky I wasn't shred to pieces" Mary scolded the assistant "Anyway, where's Ann Jorden?"
-"She and Russ are coming this way. I have a job for them" Al Simpson intervened.
Hello readers, as you noticed this is a short story about Hadley's Hope before Aliens, it will introduce the character Mary Coles (in the credits), the woman who was discovered alive in the hive by Cpl. Dietrich. This is her story and that of some events not shown in the film or in the novel River of Pain. I'll try to explain how she ended there, and how she met a little girl called Newt. Additional note: I haven't read River of Pain so in my continuity the novel didn't exist nor the comic Fire and Stone, that's because I sense the presence of marines in LV-426 didn't fit on it, as the marines from the USS Sulaco hadn't heard or mentioned them, Also, damage in the colony seems to be due to Improvised Explosive Devises and light fire arms, as in Alien: Isolation and not armor piercing ammunition like those of the M41A Pulse Rifle.