Alien: Isolation
Chapter Twenty Seven: The Anesidora
The first thing that happened upon Ripley stepping through the access port onto the Anesidora, was some of the lights coming on in reaction to her presence. Not all of them, but enough to see or work under, as if they had been set to some kind of power saving mode. It was also enough to see that the ship was in poor shape, most likely from years of the crew pushing her hard, but not having the funds to properly recover from the pushing. Verlaine's ship, the Torrens, had once been in similar condition, but then her luck turned around after she got a bunch of Weyland-Yutani contracts.
Marlow hadn't seemed to share her luck, though. Steam escaped from pipes along the walls, some of the floor plates were broken, and the place was a mess. As Ripley moved through the silent corridors, each open room was filled with salvage equipment or scrap metal, the latter of which was what they appeared to have been using for field-repairs around the ship. Still, the lights were on, and she could feel the quiet rumbling of the engines through the floor, meaning that it was space-worthy… if nothing else.
"Ricardo, I don't know if you can hear this." She began as she turned the next corner. "But the Anesidora's basic systems are online; lights, doors… not sure about comms, though… and there's no sign of Marlow or Taylor."
"Ripley?" An unexpected voice replied. "Ripley, is that you? How the hell did you get over here? But, hey, welcome to the Anesidora… you looking to join my crew? Heh… plenty of free spots."
It was Marlow, but Ripley figured that she shouldn't have been surprised that he would be monitoring internal communications onboard his own ship. She had also hoped to hear Taylor's voice next, but it didn't come, and without Ricardo to give directions, the Anesidora had to be mapped out the old fashioned way. Ripley passed crew-quarters, the stasis chamber, a generator room, and something that might have once been a rec-room… everything except what she was looking for.
"Marlow, you need to change course right now." She continued, moving down another corridor. "Your ship is headed right toward Sevastopol; what are you doing?"
"What no one else can, sweetheart." Marlow replied. "Now how's about you come find me, huh? I have something for you. There's a little staircase about thirty meters ahead of you, to the right."
She was a little hesitant to follow his directions, but there was a staircase just where he said it was, so Ripley climbed it, and found herself on the upper deck of the ship. Like onboard the Torrens, this level was dedicated to ship operations, which meant that if she kept following the path in front of her, eventually it would lead to the Bridge.
"Getting warmer, Ripley." Marlow's voice continued. "You know, it's funny… I tried to save Foster by bringing her to Sevastopol, and yeah, I think I broke just about every damn quarantine rule in the book. Waits wasn't gonna let us onboard, you know… but then I told him about the flight recorder, and he caved… for a share of the reward, of course. But then that thing burst out of her, and I realized how stupid I'd been. I know you won't agree with what I'm about to do… at least, not until you understand it the way I do… and I have something for you that I think will be pretty convincing."
The corridor straightened out, and after passing a small room that looked like a darkened computer core, the large door in front of her opened, allowing Ripley to step onto the Bridge. It was a cluttered mess like the rest of the ship, with junk and scrap metal covering everything except for the seats and controls required to fly the thing, but that wasn't what caught her attention. Besides the perfect view of Sevastopol slowly approaching, the first thing that she saw was Marlow leaning on the controls, while Taylor… while Taylor was sitting in one of the chairs with her wrists tied behind it.
"Taylor?!" She exclaimed, stepping forward. "Marlow, what the hell?!
"That's far enough, Ripley." He interrupted, taking a revolver from behind his back and pointing it at Taylor. "You know why she let me out of that cell? Do you, hmm? Tell her why you agreed to let me out, you stupid company bitch."
"Ripley, he double-crossed me!" Taylor exclaimed. "He said he was going to give me all the data he had on that creature… so I could give it to the company, and…
Her words became a yelp of surprised pain as Marlow suddenly backhanded her, and Ripley was going to reach for her own revolver, but the Captain was too quick. He grabbed Taylor by the hair and pulled her head back with one hand, cutting off her scream by shoving the barrel of his weapon into her mouth with the other.
"Don't even think about it, sweetheart." Marlow continued, looking at Ripley. "Now, unless you want me to paint the walls with Taylor's brains, you're gonna do two very simple things for me. First, you're going to, very slowly, take out your gun, and toss it over to the far wall. And then second, you're going to walk over to that console to your right, and press the play button. Now, sweetheart."
Ripley was really starting to dislike being called that, but since the Captain literally had a gun in Taylor's mouth, she had no choice but to do what he said. So she tossed the revolver away, before moving over to the console, and pressing the play button. She wasn't sure what she expected to see on the screen, but it certainly wasn't what appeared in flickering green letters.
USCSS NOSTROMO
WEYLAND-YUTANI EXECUTIVE OFFICER RECORDS
W.O. RIPLEY, ELLEN – TRANSMISSION RECEIVED
ORIGIN: NARCISSUS – REMOTE MESSAGE COMMITED
CACHE REF: 48895/56243/73316/11251
"Added report; personal message." A voice that made her gasp began. "This is, um… for my daughter… hi, Amanda, I'm recording this for you, my sweetheart, and, um… I hope you get to hear it one day."
"Mommy?" Ripley whispered as her eyes teared up. "Marlow, where did you get this?"
"It doesn't matter." The Captain snapped, making Taylor cry out when he tightened his grip on her hair. "Just keep listening."
"Sweetheart, I, um… I got into some trouble." Ellen Ripley's voice continued. "My ship, um, well… there was an accident, and… we found… we found an alien creature. It was very dangerous, and, well… the only way to stop it was to destroy the ship. Now, don't worry, I'm okay… on stuck on this lifeboat a long way out, but we had to destroy the Nostromo. We just couldn't risk bringing that thing home with us. I needed to make sure that you were safe, and hopefully, I'll get to see you very soon. I love you, sweetheart."
MESSAGE END
"You see?" Marlow asked once the screen went blank. "Your mother ran into the same creature; probably picked it up the same way we did. But she was smart, your mom, she figured out that you can't fight these things… all you can do is refuse to engage, and stop them from making contact. Because if they make contact, they win, and I'm gonna make sure that the Human Race never makes contact with them again."
"What are you talking about?" Ripley asked as he moved away from Taylor. "You don't mean… destroying the Anesidora?"
But apparently he did, and the fact that the ship was headed right toward Sevastopol was intentional as well. The way Marlow described it, he had set the ship's fusion reactor to a slow buildup, hence the power-save mode, and then overloading it. This would effectively turn the Anesidora into a nuclear weapon… one that was going to detonate the moment it made contact with the station, meaning that no one would survive.
"We have to wipe out every trace of them." The Captain continued, letting go of Taylor as he moved away. "The company's never going to know what happened here, no one is; I'm going to make sure of it… and you're going to help me."
Programming a sequence like he was describing would take two people, so of course Marlow would need Ripley's help, and with his revolver still pointed at Taylor, it didn't appear that she had any choice. The Captain motioned for her to come up to the control panels so that they could enter the final sequences together, but instead of entering the commands once she was in position, she decided to make her move. The instant that Marlow looked away to press a button, Ripley grabbed the revolver with both hands, twisting it around, while at the same time kicking him in the back of the knee.
This caused the Captain to fall against the control panel while Ripley took possession of the weapon, stepping backwards and aiming it at him just as he was standing back up. Marlow put up his hands when ordered, but instead of trying to subdue or restrain him, she moved backwards in order to free Taylor. It was a little difficult to untie her wrists with one hand, especially since she couldn't afford to take her eyes off the Captain, but soon Taylor was free. However, there was still the matter of the Anesidora heading toward Sevastopol, and only Marlow knew the codes to deactivate the auto-pilot in order to change course.
"You're making a mistake, Ripley." He said when she told him what to do. "Do you think your mother would want a bunch of corporate suits knowing the zip-code of those creatures? If she were here, she would be helping me."
"There might be people still alive on Sevastopol." Ripley argued as she moved closer. "My mother would understand that, now either deactivate the auto-pilot, or get the hell out of the way so I can do it myself."
Keeping his hands up as he stepped back, Ripley was moving up to the controls, when Marlow swung his hand into a metal tray on top of the other station next to them, knocking a large assortment of screws and small tools onto her hands. This was enough to make the revolver point away from him, so the Captain lunged forward, grabbing onto the weapon like she had, and then head-butting her hard enough to make Ripley fall against the controls like he had.
"There, that's better." Marlow said, pointing the weapon at her. "So now that we're done playing games, you're either gonna help me, or I'm gonna shoot you in the leg and ask you again. Or maybe I'll shoot you once first, to show you that I'm serious."
"No!" Taylor yelled, grabbing his arm when he started to aim. "Don't do this, Marlow… there has to be another way!"
His response was to push her away before swinging the revolver, striking Taylor in the side of the head hard enough to make her spin around before tumbling over a nearby chair. Ripley of course, wasted no time in making another grab for the weapon, but this time the Captain was ready. Not only was he able to keep her from getting it, but he also swung the revolver again, hitting her in the side of the head like he had done to Taylor. She started to stumble back, but Marlow grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back, giving her a second hit with the weapon that made her ears ring… and then a third hit that made her lose consciousness.