"All personal must evacuate," the female voice announced as Newt and Ripley rode the elevator up. "You now have two minutes to reach minimum safe distance."
The elevator came to a stop and the safety gates moved out of the way. Ripley hurried Newt out of the elevator only to stop and looked around the platform.
"No," Ripley gasped not seeing the dropship. "Bishop, goddamn you!" she shouted as she realized that the android had abandoned them.
The sound from the other elevator grabbed Ripley's attention. Rushing over Ripley looked past the gates and down the elevator shaft. The second elevator was moving.
Backing away from the shaft, Ripley picked up Newt as the climax of the atmosphere processing station's death throes began.
The platform shook as explosions ripped through the bowels of the complex. Ripley barely remained on her feet with the child in her arms. Backing up to the handrails surrounding the platform, Ripley looked around wildly for a place to escape to, some place to run to for safety.
Finally, the second elevator arrived at the platform; as one, the two survivors turned to face it as the gates retracted.
"Close your eyes, baby," Ripley said as she eyed the dark elevator compartment. Grabbing the edge of the elevator, the Queen Xenomorph started to exit the elevator. Newt silently nodded her head, her eyes tightly closed.
With her eyes on the Queen Xenomorph, Ripley place one hand on the railing to stabilize herself as she climbed on the lower section of the railing before swinging one leg over the top section.
The Queen Xenomorph looked at the pair, the ones who had invaded and destroyed her nest. The ones who had hurt her. She lowered her head and hissed before rushing towards the pair.
"I'm sorry, Newt," Ripley said as she let go of the railing, allowing them to fall off the platform and into the empty space below.
The processing station exploded as Bishop transferred the unconscious Hicks to a self-propelling stretcher and directed it along with its passenger into medical.
Once in medical, Bishop removes Hicks's boots and clothing until he was naked. Then with the precision of a machine, he thoroughly cleaned the unconscious man, making sure there was no trace of dirt or any other foreign contaminants remaining on the unconscious Marine. Once satisfied Bishop rebandaged Hicks' wounds before covering him with a blanket.
Leaving the medical bay sensors to monitor the Marine, Bishop returned to the landing dock to complete his other duties.
Close to a half hour later, Bishop returned to the medical bay, pushing a cart in front of him.
Parking the cart an arm's length from Hicks' left side, Bishop walked around the other side of the bed. Grabbing a control next to the bed, Bishop raised the head of the bed up so it was at a 45-degree incline. He paused for a moment as he studied the injured man before him. Turning slightly, Bishop picked up injector from a medical cart and injected a counter to the sedatives into Hicks' neck.
Placing the injector back on the cart, he said, "Corporal Hicks. I need you to wake up, Corporal." He lightly tapped the injured side of Hicks' face. "Wake up."
Hicks let out a groan. "What? Bishop?" he said as he opens his good eye. "What? Where are we?"
"Medical," Bishop answered. "We're back on the Sulaco."
"Ripley? Newt?" Hicks said as he tried to rise off the bed.
Bishop placed his hands on Hicks, careful of his bandaged wounds, and pushed him back down. "You need to lay still, Corporal."
Hicks complied with the artificial person's order and laid back down. "Where are they? Ripley and Newt."
Bishop cocked his head to the side. "I'm sorry, Corporal Hicks but they did not make it."
"What?" Hicks surged up, only for Bishop to force him back down once again. "What happened? I told you we weren't leaving them."
"My behavioral inhibitors would not allow me to let you die when there was no chance that they would return," Bishop replied.
"You don't know that! You don't know that they wouldn't have returned," Hicks declared as struggled under Bishop's hands as he tried to get up. "How long did you wait? Did you even give them a chance?"
"The odds of Ripley locating the child and returning with her, uninfected, before the process station exploded was minimal," Bishop answered. "There was no need to wait and see if they would survive when I had all I needed to complete my mission."
Hicks looked up at the android in confusion. His hands grasping at Bishops arms, trying to force them away so he could sit up. "What mission?" he demanded.
"Special Order 972," Bishop replied.
Hicks paused under Bishop's grasp. "What?"
"My orders were to obtain a live specimen and return it for analysis," Bishop said in a calm tone as he easily held the struggling Marine down. "In addition, I was to also destroy any evidence of Weyland-Yutani's involvement in the deaths at the colony."
"What have you done?" Hicks said breathlessly as he stared at the android he once trusted.
Bishop looked over to the left of Hicks, towards the cart sitting next to the man.
Hicks turned his head in order to see what the synthetic was looking at. His uncovered eye grew wide as he took in the sight of the stasis container and the facehugger inside of it. The status lights on the container which indicated that the container was secured was off.
Immediately, Hicks threw all his energy into getting off the table; away from the cart. "Let me go," he shouted in almost a panic as he watched the thing on the cart.
"I'm afraid I cannot do that, Corporal Hicks," Bishop said in a lifeless tone of voice.
"We destroyed those things," Hicks exclaimed ignoring Bishop's words as he fought against his grasp.
Bishop nodded his head in agreement. "The ones in the medical lab were destroyed, but I found this specimen in the science lab. I was able to place it near the landing zone before the other dropship was destroyed."
The facehugger in the stasis container felt along the unlocked lid of its container.
"Why?" Hicks demanded, his fear giving him the determination to fight past his exhaustion and injuries in order to escape.
Bishop cocked his head to the side. "Weyland-Yutani needs a living specimen. A living facehugger would not be permitted to pass through quarantine but a colonist in hypersleep would be permitted, especially when I state that said colonist is not infected."
"Colonist?" Hicks grasps on the word.
"Once you have been impregnated, you will be placed in hypersleep. Records will indicate that you are a colonist named John Smith and that all the Marines along with Lt. Ripley and Mr. Burke died on Acheron. As the sole survivor of the colony, Weyland-Yutani will take full responsible for you," Bishop explained.
"They won't get away with this," Hicks snarled.
The facehugger put enough pressure on the lid for it to open, only for it to swing close again.
Hicks placed his bare feet against Bishop's torso, he tried to force the android away so he could escape but Bishop rearranged his grip so it rested on Hick's burned arm. Hicks let out a scream of pain.
"I do not enjoy hurting you, Corporal Hicks. Please stop fighting me. It will serve you no good."
"Damn you to hell," Hicks gasped in pain as he continued to fight.
The facehugger pushed up against the lid of the container once more. This time the lid swung up and over on its hinges. It made a soft clink sound as it met the side of the container.
"I cannot be damned to hell, Corporal. An artificial person does not have a soul," Bishop replied, his attention more on the alien creature as it used its long legs to explore the outside of the stasis container.
Without warning, the facehugger sprung out of the container. It landed mere inches from where Bishop forced the Marine remain.
A tear slid from Hick' face just as the creature scurried across his body and attached itself to his face; forcing the proboscis past his lips and down his throat.
Bishop released his grip on the Marine as the paralytic chemicals the creature released rendered the Marine unconscious. He quickly and efficiently rearranged Hicks' body and covered him with a sheet in order to make Hicks more comfortable.
Using the scanners in medical, Bishop monitored the process of the implantation of the embryo for the next several hours. Finally, the facehugger released its grasp on the Marine. It clumsily crawled to the edge of the bed before falling off. Landing on the floor it crawled about another three feet before it curled up like an Earth spider and died.
Seeing that the facehugger had completed its job, Bishop released the brakes on the bed and pushed it to the hypersleep chamber. Once in the chamber, Bishop picked Hicks up from the bed, much like a father picking up a sleeping child, and placed him into the hypersleep capsule. He then secured the cover and activated the system to place the Marine into hypersleep.
Once he had confirmed the status of Hicks and his cargo, Bishop went to the secure chamber that held the ship's mainframe. He quickly edited the recordings of the return of the dropship and that of Corporal Hicks in medical. He then edited Corporal Hicks' personnel records so that his identifying features were slightly difference, on the off chance that someone would compare the ship records to the man currently in hypersleep. They would assume that John Smith had a passing resemblance to the Marine who was reported as killed in action.
After he completed the edits, Bishop composed a message to Gateway Station and the Marine Corp command. In the message, Bishop stated that all member of 2nd Battalion Bravo Team was killed in action, along with Lt. Ripley and Carter Burke. That they had discovered one survivor of Hadley's Hope, John Smith, who they were able to rescue but he was injured in the process and would require medical interventions before he could be debriefed.
Bishop then went on to explain the destruction of the colony along with the primary Atmosphere Processing Plant due to the processing station going critical. In the message, he stated that the reason for the station's destruction could not be determined. It is entirely possible that the creatures damaged the station when they were creating their hive.
He then attached the information he had on the creatures including the fact that he has the body of a dead facehugger in stasis for further examination to the message.
With that, he concluded his message and sent it off.
Immediately he started a new message, this one directed to Weyland-Yutani. In this message, Bishop confirmed that Special Order 972 was fulfilled. He also mentioned that Weyland-Yutani's employee, John Smith, would need medical assistance as soon as possible and that it would be best to keep him in hypersleep until it could be arranged. As a side note, Bishop noted that while the primary Atmosphere Processing Plant was destroyed in the nuclear blast, he did not believe that the blast would have affected any other station or the new location that had been identified. Plans for colony would need to be reviewed to see if the plans were still viable.
Sending the second message, Bishop erased any evidence that the message existed before he sent the Sulaco and its special cargo towards Earth.
Notes:
The second chapter is my Muse refusing to allow Bishop to be a bad guy. If you enjoy the 'evil' Bishop, then stop here but if you believe that Bishop could never be evil then continue to the next chapter.