I do not own the Aliens Franchise.
I do own a digital copy of the movie.
Alien Evolution
Don't Look Back
So close, they've gotten so close.
"Incoming-"
And then it happened-
"Multiple signals-"
They've been ambushed making their way through the kitchen area, multiple Xenomorphs.
No animal-hybrids but some of the Xenos don't look exactly like the ones on the Nostromo and LV-426.
Their proportions aren't right, they have scraps of clothing hanging from their monstrous frames.
Their screeches carry a note of something might have once resembled human screams.
But doesn't matter now because they're all dead, every single one.
And every remaining soldier has fallen.
The female, Cole, covered in blood, long scratch on her face under the helmet, if not for the Xenomorph contact mutations, they could just patch that right up . . .
"Here!"
. . . throws her gun at Ripley . . .
"I'm sorry!"
. . . and grabs her cohort, a male with a talon sticking out of his leg . . .
"No, wait!"
. . . and drags his screaming staggering bulk the few feet backward . . .
"Cole! Cole!"
. . . into a huge walk-in freezer . . .
"Cole!"
. . . and slamming the door after them.
"Co-"
Trapping them inside with no inside handle, no lever, no way to get out-
Goddamn you-
-which they won't need because within seconds-
Goddamn you all to hell for this-
-they'll be tearing each other limb from Xenomorph-mutated limb-
"-ley!"
-until they're both dead.
"Ripley!"
And they won't have time to freeze or starve to death anyway.
"Ripley!"
A 'what' barrels itself up Ellen Ripley's throat and she locks it down behind her teeth, she won't scream at the child just because she feels like destroying the whole world and everything in it-
Instead she turns to the adamant jerking on her sleeve and-
oh god-
"No-"
It was the tail that skewered him, that long, spiked, serrated thing.
Clean through the torso.
Not straight through the heart.
But a fatal wound even without the added Xenomorph hijack to its host.
In this case, Senior Corporal Dwayne Jonathan Hicks.
He blasted the shit out of it, it's dead at his feet.
"Ellen."
But the damage has been done.
And he's going to die.
Worse.
The Xenomorph infection is racing unseen, changing his entire body on a cellular level.
He can already feel it, she can see that in his bloodshot eyes, hear it in the rasp of his broken voice.
He has two minutes at the least, five at the most.
And then he will change. He will hunt.
"There's . . ."
And they will die.
". . . there's no time."
"Dwayne-"
Newt is clinging to her side, eyes big and blue and frightened.
Hicks, slumped against a gore-smeared stainless steel prep station, presses the gear to blast the bridge into her hands, it's slick with his blood.
"Ellen, you have to go. You know that."
Their eyes lock, they don't have time to say goodbye, they don't have time to say anything.
Then he shifts his gaze to the child, reaches out a gentle hand.
Unsteady fingers graze her soft cheek, leave a smear of blood.
"Choose our daughter."
And looks one final time to Ellen Ripley.
"Don't look back."
They're halfway down the corridor, around the corner, out of sight, when the gun blast reaches her ears and the meaning of it shreds her heart.
He did what they had always agreed he would do.
Not end up like the others.
Take care of it.
He had waited, waited until they could not see him.
Raised the gun, taken aim.
And sent a shot straight into his own head.
Obliterating the brain tissue, the control center of the central nervous system.
Rendering the body useless, the Xenomorph DNA unable to take control.
Saving them, saving him.
From himself.
Newt, is wrapped around her, legs and arms squeezing tight.
Ellen Ripley cries out when Dwayne Hicks' sacrificial death rips her heart from her body.
Squeezes her eyes shut against the tears, clenched hand on her daughter's back spasming momentarily, fingers claws.
The gun strapped around her clatters as she stumbles against the wall of the corridor and the lights are flickering, they're always flickering.
And she's disoriented, dizzy.
And breaking apart at her core.
But there are more human-Xeno hybrids lurking, she's sure of it, she can't stop to mourn.
She has to choose her daughter.
"Hold on, baby."
And she can't . . .
"We're almost there."
. . . look back.
She makes it to the bridge, close, they had been so close, the three of them, they almost made it-
And it's empty, there's no one there.
"James! James, where are you?!"
She shouts it over the comms, the channel only they are on.
There's a pause and she knows she shouldn't have trusted him, they're fucked, absolutely everything is completely fucked-
"Lieutenant Ripley, I'm sorry to say there's been a change of plans."
And her heart drops, they have come so far, they're so close, after everything they've fought for and lost and it cannot end this way-
But it's not what she thinks.
"The computer systems are damaged, the self-destruct has to be activated manually, I was waiting for you to signal you were at the bridge."
"We're here!" she shouts. "We're right fucking here!"
Empty static mocks her desperate shout for a moment and then he comes back over the signal.
"Let me know when you're closing the loading dock door; I'll start the countdown."
She fumbles, unable to comprehend.
"You can't do that! You'll be trapped; you'll die!"
An abrupt, uneven sound comes over the comms, there and gone, she can't quite place what it is.
Until she realizes it was a bark of humorless laughter.
"Believe me, I'd prefer not to. I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid."
She can't think of a single thing to say, time is ticking away and he's right, there is no other choice but . . .
"Thank you. James."
"Good luck, Lieutenant Ripley."
. . . to set the gear, . . .
"One good charge should do it."
. . . punch in the code for the loading dock blast door.
And carry her daughter . . .
"Hold on, Newt, we're almost there-"
. . . through it.
Before you hate me, Michael Biehn (Hicks) said he didn't mind Hicks getting killed off in A3, that he only thought the character had more to offer first. And I completely agree.
Soooo . . .
Forgive me?
It's okay if you don't. I'd understand.
;)
Thanks to ReadHood001 and DinahRay for so graciously reviewing the previous chapter.
Just a few more to go and then we're done.