I didn't see everything that transpired in that little lab, but it sounded horrific.

The lab resembled a miniature hospital, with IV machines, devices to measure vitals, a `crash cart', a stretcher and a desk, perhaps a monitoring station or something.

Rebecca found the hospital-like setting immediately suspicious, but couldn't articulate properly due to having those memories removed from her brain. Of course, no one thought to test the glass, which should have been the first thing to tip them off. Why would a miniature hospital need bullet resistant windows?

The Ripley woman tucked Newt into a spring bed for the night. Not the safest place for a child to sleep, to be honest, but it appeared safe.

The dismissive comments Rebecca made to Ellen about her doll made me question all the effort we put into rescuing the item. It was, as she said, "Only a hunk of plastic." Perhaps the loss of her brother soured the experience too much. Or maybe she knew that dolls and wand waving would not repel Ss'sik'chtokiwij.

The woman, believing Rebecca to be safe and secure, with a camera watching everything in the room, stepped outside to meet with the others about finding more survivors.

Hudson uncovered a photo directory of all the colonists, which included pictures of Rebecca's parents. "They look like a couple rednecks. The mom's like Grandma from The Addams Family."

Ellen spoke a little more respectfully about them. "I'm sure they were really nice people."

It seemed that one of the lab computers could track the PTD's of colonists, or Hudson had reprogrammed it to give them the information, for they soon discovered, as I and Rebecca already knew, that all the colonists had been dragged down to the processing station.

They established a plan to send in a group of soldiers to search the area. Ellen and Newt would stay back, Burke notifying them if they were needed. Honestly, not a very good idea, but nobody asked for my opinion.

Two guards would stand guard outside Ellen's room, one watching the cameras.

Ellen, though, didn't want to linger on the base for any length of time, preferring to go with the others, rescue the colonists and go home.

She didn't get to go because the personnel carrier wouldn't start, and while the team mechanic worked on it, they got hit by a bad storm. Zero visibility.

Gorman sent his troops around the base, to secure the area, and wait it out.

When Ellen returned to their makeshift bedroom, she found Newt hiding under the bed. Rebecca told the woman that she always slept that way, and "Mommy always slept outside my room, so that nothing bad could get in."

That hurt.

Rebecca never intentionally called me mother. I could only assume that, in her mind, she saw only her small witchy looking mother curled up next to her each night, instead of me. Like losing someone to Alzheimer's. I don't think this kind of thing could ever not be painful.

"Your mother sounds very...interesting." For a moment, Ripley attempted to perform my role, but then put the child on top of the mattress.

That's when the socmavaj appeared.

Ellen overturned a bed on it, but that only slowed it down.

It skittered across the floor, leaped on my little friend, tried to lay its egg, but Ellen wrestled it away from the girl's face, throwing it on the floor.

The socmavaj, undeterred, came leaping back.

Ellen tried to break the glass windows with a chair, but of course that kind of glass I had to cut through with a bone saw. Ellen screamed and pounded on it, but Burke had shut off sound to the cameras and darkened the monitors, so nobody came to help.

The socmavaj chased after Rebecca.

She screamed, shoving it into a wall with the crash cart.

Ellen rather ingeniously solved their dilemma by holding a cigarette lighter to a fire sprinkler.

Hicks shot the window open, jumped into the room, blew the socmavaj to bits.

They actually found two socmavaj in the room, a human host for each one. Hicks destroyed both.

Rebecca's expression grew dark. "We were better off in my hideout."

All this I pieced together from conversations throughout the course of the evening.

Burke's story: I tricked him into entering my cell by asking what he thought of my needlework, then attacked him, stole his card, and used it to override the security system and release the socmavaj from its tank. I didn't even know how to do all that, but saying so didn't help my case any.

Burke's rounded face appeared to be well accustomed to lying, looking completely genuine as he said all those things. Hence why I ended up with guns in my face.

Okay, so maybe not literally ten guns, but they waved them around so much that it felt like it.

One of the soldiers, a pale skinny guy, noticed the ruined sweater in my claws and cracked a joke. "Got sick of the pattern?"

"Yes," I sighed. "It is now a scarf."

I stared at Burke as he groaned, scooting into a half seated position against the wall.

The woman slammed her palm down on the door closing button, locking me in my cell. The glass must have been made of a different material than the one they had in their room, because I could still hear what transpired outside. Perhaps sound carried through the little vents. "I told you we should have blown its (God condemned) brains out, but no! You had to keep it! A rare and valuable scientific specimen, you said! What do you think of your bastard pet now, Burke!"

The man raised his hands defensively. "I admit it's gotten out of hand, but I'm not sure destroying it is the right course of action."

Ellen put her hands on her hips. "Why the hell not! It disabled the systems and nearly got the both of us killed! You said it yourself, Burke!"

The man had put himself in a catch-22 with this one. He'd either have to lose a `valuable specimen' or tell the truth.

"Let's not be hasty, Ellen. If a guy foolishly leans too far into the lion exhibit, do you blame the lion for the attack?"

Ellen scowled at him. "What are you trying to say, Burke? You want us to leave this thing where it is so it can come up with another way to kill us?"

"Lord, no. What I'm saying is that we all underestimated how dangerous this creature is. We need to find it some restraints, and have someone standing guard twenty four seven to make sure nothing unsafe happens again."

"It would save a whole lot of trouble if we just pumped the damn thing full of bullets and left it where it is."

I started praying.

The woman turned to stare at me. "What's it doing?"

"It understands English, Ellen. Apparently it's preparing to meet its maker."

Ellen banged her fist on my cage. "You try to kill us, and now you're praying? What is this, some kind of anti-human jihad? You trying to earn seventy two host bodies from your god? Is that your plan?"

I quoted 1 Peter 2:19.

The woman just stared at me.

Rebecca tugged Ellen's hand. "Ernie's too dumb to run that computer. She doesn't know how to unlock doors or use the tracking system. I had to show her how to use a DVD player."

Ellen shot me a suspicious glance, then turned it on Burke.

The man rubbed his pointy chin, shook his carrot shaped head. "You'd really be surprised. And it's not like the controls are that complicated."

During the course of this discussion, the team's Bishop unit had taken a break from dissecting frozen socmavaj to examine everyone's injuries.

Ellen frowned at the droid in annoyance. Having received only a few light bruises to her neck, so she brushed him away. He found Rebecca similarly uninjured.

The android knelt next to Burke, touching his wrist. "Let me take a look at that. I may be able to repair the damage."

Burke drew away from him. "I'm okay."

[0000]

But then he must have noticed how suspicious that looked, because he let Bishop unwrap the bandage and check the wound.

The android treated Burke's injuries with a spray. "These cuts run in an interesting angle. In animal attacks, one ordinarily expects the mauling to be directed towards the center, but these defensive wounds..." He rebandaged the site.

Burke's pink, feminine lips turned downwards in a frown. "It's an alien creature. It's not going to maul a man like a lion or a tiger. Plus it uses tools."

Bishop, who had been examining Burke's leg injury at the time, added, "Now that you mention it, these bruises are also angled strangely..."

Burke forced a laugh. "Are you implying what I think you are? Because if that's the case, you need to go get your circuits checked."

The android stood back up. "My last diagnostic scan reported one hundred percent functionality, but I will run a full system check to ensure consistency."

"You do that, Bishop."

As Bishop stepped out, Ellen looked at Burke, not the robot, with suspicion. "I've never seen one of those things clubbing someone to death."

Out of nervousness, and not having anything to do, I started work on my daughter's scarf.

Burke pointed to my craftwork. "You've never seen one do that before, either, have you?"

"Burke, my point is that they don't need knives and clubs. They can rip a person open easily enough with just their claws and teeth."

"Well maybe it didn't want to kill me. Maybe it just wanted you, Ellen."

"You know what I think? I think you're full of shit! This is another (God condemned) scheme to get me to carry one of those things back to earth for some fucking military operation!"

Burke dropped his crippled act, rising to his feet. "Okay, okay. You got me. So I may have...struck our subject a little."

"So you fucking staged your injuries to take the heat off yourself! You lily livered little shit!"

The man flinched. "Okay, I admit it. I shouldn't have done it this way, and for that I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Yeah? In what fucking hypothetical situation would this have actually been acceptable? Tell me this, Burke: You have Specimen 73. You already got your damned alien. Why couldn't you stop there?"

Burke sighed. "Ellen...It's not that simple."

The android had popped back into the room. "It wouldn't pass through ICC quarantine. Such a large sample would be too noticeable."

"Then make it cough up a fucking egg! They've done it before!"

"ICC could still detect it. It's much more efficient to impregnate humans with xenomorph larva and send them through undetected. The larva would be of tremendous value to the company labs."

"You son of a bitch!" Ellen grabbed Burke by the throat. "You inhuman monster! A child was in there!"

She slammed his round head against the wall. "That thing in the cell over there has more of a soul than you do!" Her fingers clamped around his throat. "At least it doesn't fuck others of its kind over for a (God condemned) percentage!"

"Ellen!" he gasped. "Look, I'm sorry! Believe me when I say I didn't want this. The board had very specific directions about how they wanted this thing transported. The last thing I wanted to do was get a kid involved."

Ellen let go of his throat, but still mashed his shirt collar in her fists. She shoved him back into the metal surface.

By this time, Vasquez had strolled into the room, popping gum. "Whoa, what's going on here?"

Ellen outlined a convoluted theory she had about Burke planning to sabotage the life support systems of the soldiers' cryogenics pods, leaving only the impregnated host bodies alive enough to take back to earth.

"Ellen, that's a paranoid delusion," Burke protested. "I thought you'd be smarter than this."

"Now you're gaslighting me. Nice!"

The soldiers, convinced by Ellen's story, glowered, readying their guns.

The pale bony one waved his weapon threateningly. "You're dog meat, pal!"

Burke raised his hands. "You're blowing this all out of proportion! Can't anyone see how delusional her theory is? Why would you even think I would make a plan like that?"

Ellen scoffed. "I'm only following the clues."

"He's dead." Vasquez pointed a gun in his face. "I say we dust this sucker right now!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Gorman pulled her back. "No one's blowing anyone away!"

"He's right," Ellen sighed. "He has to go back. To answer for his crimes."

"Thank you." Burke shakily put his hands down. "Ellen, if it means anything to you, I'm sorry. If there's anything I can do to make things up to you..."

Ellen opened my cell, shoved Burke inside, shut the door on him.

The man got scared, banging on the door in a way that made me expect him to shout "Wilma!" at any moment. "This isn't funny, Ellen!"

"No, Burke. It's not. Let's see how you like it."

The man turned around, back to the glass, staring at me in apprehension. Odd for someone who just arbitrarily beat me with a piece of metal shelving. "Look, uh...I'm sorry I hurt you and ripped up your nice sweater...No hard feelings?"

I purred, rather pleased that he would even condescend to speak to me. "I have already forgiven you. But I suggest you bring your other sins against Ms. Ripley and Rebecca before the Lord."

He furrowed his thin eyebrows. "Was that your bible in the other lab?"

"Yes, I believe that was King James version. I prefer the New International Translation."

"Are you going to eat me?"

"Not unless you want me to. I am a little hungry."

He sunk to the reinforced metal floor, staring, with his back to the wall.

Losing interest, I continued knitting. "So, Burke...Do you regularly go to church?"

The man swallowed. "Actually, yes. I do go. Well, I did, you know, before the trip. I'm, uh, non-denominational."

"That explains a lot," Ellen said through the glass. "By the way, who was that naked woman I saw in the background of your video phone?"

"And this is important why?"

"Oh nothing. It's just, even if we ignore the whole ugly incident in the lab a few minutes ago, you'd think an alleged Christian would not make adultery such a habit." I think the woman was just trying to goad me into killing Burke.

"If you must know, she left me. I wasn't going to wait around all year for that psycho. What you saw on that video phone was me getting on with my life."

"I don't know, Burke. I've got a sneaky suspicion that she's the sane one. Call it an educated guess."

I looped my yarn. "Do you know anything about DAMBALLAH?"

Burke furrowed his brow. "I'm familiar with the name. In fact, I think you actually belong to one of their programs."

"I belong only to my Savior."

He sighed. "At any rate, they were working on you. That's all I know."

A female soldier with a butch haircut marched into the room. The ginger hair looked orange under the fluorescents. "The APC is working, and the storm just cleared up. Let's go find those colonists."

Burke pressed his face up against the glass. "Can I come along? I'd still like to help, if I can."

"We can do without your help," Ellen answered. "Why don't you stay in there and help Subject 73 hold his thread?"

Burke gave her a pleading glance. "Ellen, be reasonable. You can see that this thing isn't going to harm me, so I really don't see any point in you keeping me here, unless you want me to die from the smell. And let's not forget my company was responsible for the construction of that processing station!"

The android brought out an electric leash. "I found this in one of the storage lockers."

Ellen chuckled. "Great! Will it fit Burke?"

I have never been inside an APC before.

The vehicle fairly resembled a tank, except without a cannon on top. Armor plated tires and body, interior like a submarine.

Dark, illuminated only by computer monitors and mysterious buttons. Racks of weaponry, beds that possibly doubled as stretchers, as well as actual stretchers for the field. The seats had restraints resembling that of amusement park rides. Other than this, just a bunch of storage compartments. As advertised, it was merely an armored machine for carrying personnel.

They hooked my electric leash to a wall in the back, assigning the redhead the duty of watching me by gunpoint. Burke, despite Ripley's threats, did not receive his own leash.

I knitted as the vehicle rolled along, continuing to unravel the shreds of ruined sweater to feed into the weaving. The process reminded me of programs I'd viewed about ribosomes being fed strings of chromosomes, Shauqauzjarruba's scarf being the warm wooly protein chain. I smiled a little at the thought.

The redhead kept fidgeting with her name patch. The stitchwork appeared to be coming unraveled around the `D' on Dietrich. I pointed a knitting needle that way. "I can fix that if you want."

She shuddered. "No thanks, bug."

Ellen smirked at me. "Tough, mighty woman, huh?"

I shrugged. "I've had...nightmares."

She fell into thoughtful silence.

We arrived at the processing station a little too quickly for me to make any significant progress on the weaving.

Hudson paused to check a blueprint of the area, reviewing the positions of the PTD's again. "Looks like a fucking town meeting down there! What the hell are they doing?"

I just shook my head.

Rebecca, seated close to the front, turned around to face me. "Do you think there's still someone alive down there?"

I frowned. "...Doubtful."

Gorman sent six soldiers into the building, armed with their large weapons. He, Ellen, Rebecca, Burke and Bishop stayed behind in the safety of the APC, monitoring their helmet cameras.

Since no one wanted to bring me along, I remained where I was, knitting while Bishop "made sure I didn't try anything funny."

I'd gotten the scarf looking fairly good, and only had a piece left to unravel on the sweater piece when I heard the sounds of gunfire over the radio.

"How do you like that, bitches?" Vasquez barked at her fallen foes.

Ellen scowled at the monitor. "Gorman, what kind of rounds are your men using?"

The bullets the men used sounded relatively dangerous.

[0001]

Ellen pointed to a spot on a digital schematic. "They're right below the primary heat exchangers. Are you sure you want them firing explosive rounds next to all that?"

"I don't see your point, Ripley."

"Gorman," said Burke. "This processing station is one giant nuclear reactor. If one explosive round goes off in the wrong place, you'll take out half the planet."

"Jesus," Gorman whispered.

I looked up. "May His name be praised."

The general ignored me, pushing the com button. "Everyone listen to me. No firing in there. I repeat, do not use ammunition!"

"The fuck?" Vasquez radioed back.

"What are we supposed do instead?" Hudson challenged. "Just tell them to move out of the way?"

"I tried that." I added a loop to the scarf. "It didn't work."

"Apone, Hicks, collect the magazines."

Things got quiet for a few moments. I couldn't see that much from the rear of the vehicle, so I knitted.

The soldiers had been examining the strange mechanical structures growing over the walls and ceiling, expressing worriment about the secretions oozing around them. This didn't interest me any more than it would interest you if someone came into your old house complaining about dust, and mold in the basement.

I had the sweater unraveled down to the collar, one of the items I originally had a much more difficult time assembling. I would have just kept it and done sort of a yoke thing, but I feared the collar would slide off Shauqauzjarruba's body. We'd just have to have a little scarf tying class.

"We've found something," said a voice on the radio.

Ellen stared at the monitor and used the Lord's name in vain.

All of a sudden, the radio filled with yells and shouts of profanity. It seemed they had discovered a victim just seconds before a larva burst from her chest.

They made too much noise. As, they say, `All hell broke loose' after that: People screaming, machine guns blasted here and there (in direct disobedience to Gorman's orders, I might add).

Apone shouted an order for a roll call, but only static answered him.

The bag of ammunition exploded, someone caught on fire, falling over a balcony to their death.

Gorman shouted orders to lay down a suppressing fire, but nobody understood the order over the static.

"We've got to do something!" Ellen shouted. "Gorman, get everyone out of there!"

The little man appeared to have gone into shock. He only stammered, "Um-um-um."

Ellen grabbed the mike, shouting into it. "Hicks! Hudson! Everyone! Return to the APC!"

Static answered her.

"Vasquez! Apone!"

No answer.

"What are we going to do?" Gorman kept asking himself, over and over.

With a heavy sigh, Ellen turned around and faced me, hands on her hips. "Ernie, how much do you love Jesus?"

I grinned. "With all my heart and soul!"

The annoyed look of contempt indicated she hadn't asked this out of a desire to know the Lord. "Do you also love human beings?"

"Jesus is both human and divine. I love those he loves."

She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms.

Burke had an incredulous look on his face, barely suppressing laughter. "Ellen, what are you doing? This is hardly a time to be discussing theology—"

"Quiet," she snapped.

The woman glanced at Rebecca. "Has this thing ever hurt anybody?"

"Only if they're bad."

"And yet it didn't kill Burke. They must have been really bad!"

The girl nodded. "One time he did kill a nice man from a jail, but it was an accident and he's sorry."

So she remembers the bad things, I thought.

Ellen stepped closer to me. "If I release you, do you promise to bring those soldiers back? Alive?"

I swallowed. "I'll do what I can."

Burke shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Ellen, are you sure this is a wise course of action? I mean, even if 73 doesn't rip them to pieces, what are the guys going to think when they see one of those creatures charging after them?"

Bishop flipped through a booklet. "The vehicle manifest includes a small collection of flags for burials and territorial purposes."

Burke chuckled.

"What?" Ellen fairly seethed at him. "What's so damn funny?"

"I was just picturing him with a cape."

And so they tied a red Marine Corps flag around my neck.

Ellen opened a sliding door, grabbed the end of my electrified leash. "You really love Jesus and love human beings. This isn't just bullshit."

"Yes."

She unfastened my restraints. "Then do your Christian duty."