XXI

"What the fuck do you think you're playing at, Jones?" Alan yelled, reaching down to grab his gun from the floor. He breathed heavily as he looked at me angrily, his face as red as a beetroot.

"Damn it, Matthew, we almost had it!" Nathan added, a similar look of disappointment on his face. The three men now stared right at me, with steely eyes and grim expressions, each of them as royally pissed off as the last.

"You'd better have a damn good explanation for this…" Alan continued.

"I… it…" I tried desperately, hoping for some perfect excuse to present itself to me. But none did. Instead, I simply stuttered uncontrollably, my body jittering and my palms sweating.

It was at this moment in time that Ryan stepped into the conversation, which came somewhat as a relief for me, as it gave me a little longer to conjure up an explanation. That was, at least, until I heard what he had to say.

"I knew he was hiding something, sir," He began, addressing Alan. "Nathan said he'd been asking funny questions."

"Oh, thanks for the confidentiality, Nathan(!)" I said sarcastically, slightly offended by his betrayal of my privacy.

"He's a sympathiser." Ryan continued, with particular emphasis of disgust on the word 'sympathiser'.

"Now hold on, Ryan." I said, attempting to defend myself. "I may be many things, but a sympathiser is not one of them. Do you really think I'd defend these… things?" I had to force that last word out to make it sound convincing.

For a second or two, nobody spoke. Ryan was clearly dead-set in his opinion, but Nathan and Alan were still deciding whether or not to believe me. I just hoped I was a convincing enough liar to get them on my side.

"So why did you let it escape, then?" Alan asked skeptically. Clearly he was at least trying to believe me.

"Well…" I began, and then, it suddenly hit me. The perfect excuse. Such an elaborate and scientifically questionable excuse that they'd have to believe me. Such an unfathomably brilliant, needlessly complicated excuse that… anyway, I had an excuse.

"I had to stop us from all firing at once." I said confidently. 'There,' I thought to myself smugly. 'That'll do it'. Alan looked at me with a raised eyebrow, clearly confused by my unusual explanation. He asked me to elaborate, so I did.

"It's like this," I began, preparing to unleash my story upon the awaiting men. "Alan, you and Ryan have supercharged energy-burst cannons, right? If you'd both fired them at the same target, the combined electrical force produced by the collision would have been sufficient enough to power all of the Archimedes' onboard systems for over three months. Now, I had an experimental chain gun, didn't I? The chain gun releases a strip of metal at great speed from its barrel when fired. Couple that strip of metal with thousands of volts of electricity, and whatever it hit would be dead within an instant."

"Exactly." Ryan said bluntly. "If you hadn't pushed us all over the place, that thing would be dead by now."

"Goddard's right, Jones." Alan agreed. "It doesn't add up."

Shaking my head, and smiling slightly at my own brilliance, I geared myself up to counteract Ryan's argument.

"That's where you're wrong, Ryan." I beamed. "You forgot about Nathan's weapon. The neutron displacement beam emitter. Capable of disintegrating its target into particulate matter instantaneously. Now, if Nathan had fired the beam emitter at the supercharged, high-speed bolt of metal that was hurtling towards the creature, it would have made contact and disintegrated it. Then, billions upon billions of highly-charged microscopic particles would have ricocheted throughout the corridor, not only killing the creature, but eradicating all of us as well. So yes, I let the Xenomorph escape. But only to save all of us." I leaned back against a nearby wall, feeling pleased with my seemingly watertight story (which of course was complete bollocks).

"Nice try, Matthew." Ryan chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. "You really think we'll believe that?" I glanced over at Alan and Nathan, both of whom looked as if they were actually considering the validity of my story. Thank God.

"I appreciate that you were trying to act in the best interests of the crew, Jones." Alan eventually said. "But-"

"Oh, come on, Alan!" Ryan interrupted. "You don't honestly buy this crap, do you?"

"I beg your pardon, Goddard?!" Alan replied, startled. "For your information, I do 'buy this crap'. I believe that Jones did what he had to for the good of the crew."

"Thank you, Alan." I nodded. "I'm just glad none of us got hurt."

"I couldn't agree more, Jones." He agreed. "We've lost too much already. However, despite your actions, you've still greatly jeopardised our mission, you understand? The appropriate punishment under these circumstances is zero-level clearance." Ryan's scowl suddenly turned to a smug grin. My face, on the other hand, fell.

"Zero-level clearance?" I pleaded. "Are you serious?" He couldn't do this to me. I was his second-in-command.

"Sir, don't you think that's a bit harsh?" Nathan asked. "And we need as many men as possible if we want to kill these things."

"I appreciate your concern, Smith, but my decision is final." Alan said sternly. "Jones, you will return to your quarters immediately. You will remain there until we reach Earth, where your wages for this mission will be docked appropriately." I tried desperately to reason with Alan, but he was having none of that. He assured me that the sooner I complied, the less hassle it would be for all of us. But seriously: zero-level clearance? Me? I hadn't done anything that serious, had I?

A few minutes later, the others had made plans to continue searching the ship. I was told that they'd check in with Archie in five minutes to make sure I'd returned to my quarters immediately. As they wandered away, I was left wondering about the implications of what I'd just done. Alan and Nathan were satisfied with my version of events, but Ryan? Not so much. Was he on to me? Did he really know what had happened between me and Xena? And that reminded me: what would happen to Xena now? If I was being banished to my quarters, how could I ensure that she was safe from harm, that the others wouldn't find her and kill her? I found myself wishing that none of this had ever happened as I marveled at the mess that I'd got myself into. My heart was still racing from nearly killing Xena, let alone having to explain myself when I defended her.

When I reached my quarters, I stepped inside silently and sat down, as usual, at my desk. I buried my face in my hands, and lost myself in deep thought. 'Just think, Matthew,' I said to myself. 'Just think how much easier this whole thing would have been if you hadn't gone falling in love with a Xenomorph, you prick.' It was certainly a dire situation I was in now. Ryan, Alan and Nathan still roamed around the ship, shooting at shadows, always watching their backs in anticipation of the approaching danger. But if they found Xena, there'd be no danger. If they found Xena, she'd cower away from them, she'd refuse to engage in any form of combat. She'd wave the white flag of surrender and they'd gun her down anyway, with not so much as a second thought about the possibility that she didn't want to hurt them. Even with me around to keep her out of trouble, she'd managed to wander right into our path. Now she was alone out there. She could be dead within the night.

After a while, I lifted my head out of my hands and checked the time. It was almost five already. How time flies when you're wallowing in self-loathing. I wasn't allowed to leave my quarters at all until we finally made it back to Earth, so I assumed that somebody would bring me something to eat sooner or later. Until then, I simply crawled under the thin sheets of my cold, hard bed, and tried to forget about my troubles. 'Forget about your problems, and they just might go away'. I can't remember who told me that. Must've been a long time ago. Whoever they were, though, they were full of shit, because I was laid in that bed for over forty-five minutes and my problems were still right there, clear as day. In fact, they were still there by 6:15 in the evening, when a knock at the door broke the silence in the room.

Getting to my feet, I walked over to the door, and called out to learn who it was before letting them in.

"Who is it?" I asked, although I was already pushing the button on the adjacent wall to release the locking mechanism. As the door moved away, it revealed, for the second time that day, Ryan. He stood in the doorway with a cafeteria tray filled with a delightfully grey stew, or something like that.

"Just came to bring you your tea, Matthew." He said, pushing straight past me and placing the tray on my desk quite forcibly.

"Yeah, well if that's all, you can go now, Ryan." I replied. I was in no mood to talk to him right now.

"Actually, there is something else…" He told me, a look upon his face which was totally unreadable. He walked over to the door and shut it, ensuring I was unable to shy away from the conversation. "I thought you and I could have a little chat about you and your Xenomorph pals."