"Grandmother! You're alive!"
My massive relative growled indignantly. "No thanks to you!"
She rammed my head into the side of the shuttle so hard that I fell to the floor and blacked out.
When I regained consciousness a few seconds later, I found the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij glowering at Ripley.
"Go," the woman hissed to the little girl.
Newt hesitated.
"Move!"
When my little friend retreated, Grandmother stomped forward, tried to follow.
Ripley waved her arms to refocus Grandmother's attention. "No! Over here, you big lummox!"
Grandmother turned to face her. "Good. I prefer larger prey."
"Run!" Ripley called to Newt.
As the girl fled, Grandma turned her head that way again. "Wait. Is the smaller one more tasty? Why don't you want me to kill that one?"
Ripley waved her arms again.
"Fine, fine. I'll kill you first! Happy?"
The woman fled in a hurry, Grandmother giving chase.
"I thought you wanted me to kill you! Make up your mind!"
Groaning, I staggered to my feet, searching for the girl, but she already hid somewhere out of view.
The woman rushed through a giant pressure door, hitting the close button.
Although the door moved with agonizing slowness, it rolled halfway to the floor by the time Grandmother could stick her face across its threshold. She squatted to crawl through the gap, but at that moment the door lowered too far for her to reasonably fit.
Grandma stood up. "Oh well! Guess I'll go kill the other one!"
She turned her back to the door, sniffing around for the younger human's scent.
No way to conveniently watch the girl. If, for example, I followed her scent and placed myself in a conspicuous position to guard her, it would be akin to placing a red flag over Newt's hiding spot and saying, "She's over here."
Unfortunately, Grandmother still found where she hid before I did.
Newt screamed as the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij threw aside a metal grate, exposing her place of concealment.
I thought for sure Newt had been captured, but Grandmother only growled in frustration, throwing aside grate after grate.
In retrospect, not the best idea, hiding beneath a floor of modular construction.
I had to act fast, or end up witnessing another poor child being ripped to pieces.
Although standing in the center of a large military vessel, soldiers didn't just leave their weapons lying about. The items, I presumed, remained safely tucked away in gun lockers and other regions of the station I did not have time to access. The best thing I could come up with on such short notice: A fire extinguisher.
It didn't work.
The moment I blasted Grandmother in the face, she snatched the thing out of my claws and whacked me over the head with it.
She bludgeoned me with it again and again, to the point where steaming blood came out and the world dimmed around me.
"Hey, you shitheaded big bully!" a small voice yelled in Ss'sik'chtokiwij. "Leave my friend alone!"
Grandmother purred at me in amusement. "Why Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik! You've taught it to speak! What other tricks can it do?"
"She can sing," I bluffed.
"Pah. I hate music."
"What? How can you—"
Before I could finish the sentence, she hit me in the head again, and I lost consciousness.
The last thing I heard: "Call me a shithead, will she?"
Upon awakening from my blackout, I overheard the sweetest, youngest human voice shouting the most crude and barbaric insults in the Ss'sik'chtokiwij language.
In a rage, Grandmother roared and flung pieces of grating right and left, reaching into the floor. "You disrespectful little human scum! When I catch you, I'm going to snap that tiny neck of yours like a twig! Rip out your little voice box to shut you up!"
Newt and Grandmother cussed at each other as they played their cat-and-mouse game.
I threw a tool crate at Grandma, but she only batted it aside and kept pursuing her prey.
Newt suddenly screamed as Grandmother picked her up.
The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij let out a triumphant purr.
I thought she would break the girl's neck as promised, but at that very moment, a pressure door slowly whirred open, revealing a big, human shaped yellow machine with enormous crab claws.
Concealed within its armor-like framework stood the Ripley woman, eyes ablaze with motherly fury. "Put my larva down, you bitch!"
Wait, what did you think she was going to say?
Grandmother, noticing me groaning and getting to my feet, asked me, "What did that thing just say to me?"
I frowned. "It's...offensive."
"Come here and say it to my face!" Grandmother roared at the woman.
Newt squirmed in her grip. "Ripley! Help!"
"I'm coming, baby!" The woman's yellow machine moved with slow, ungraceful strides, but she did her best to rush forward and answer her enemy's challenge.
When Ripley got close, Grandmother held Newt out in front of her, tail poised to spear her through the back like a toothpick through summer sausage. "So this thing's precious to you? How do you think I felt when you murdered all my babies?"
"She didn't murder so many," I blurted. "Socmavaj are not larva. Remember that life begins in the carcass."
"You stay out of this!" Grandmother snarled back.
To Ripley, of course, this all sounded like a bunch of growling. She only cared about what Grandma held in her claws. "Let her go!"
Grandmother turned her head in my direction. "What did she just say?"
"I thought you told me to stay out of this."
"Do you want me to kill this little thing?"
I whimpered. I figured Grandmother would kill Newt anyway, but I didn't want to voice that out loud. Not liking where this was going, I answered, "The woman said she's sorry."
"Dear, you're a bad liar. Those noises really didn't sound like an apology to me."
By this time, I had closed a fair amount of distance between me and her, so I cried, "I know!" and jumped on her tail.
"You disrespectful ssogdisfi!" Grandmother growled, whipping me back and forth through the air.
Ripley stomped up to her with that clunky machine, grabbing the glistening black arm that held Newt by the wrist.
The woman made the machine claw close down until Grandmother's chitinous plates cracked. Ripley's other mechanical arm grabbed her by the throat.
Grandmother let out a shriek of pain, dropping the girl.
Her tail snapped out, and I went flying across the vehicle bay.
The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij growled, stabbing at the woman with her tail.
Ripley moved out of the way at the last second, the tail's spear point puncturing the padding on her headrest.
"I thought you would make a good uwberssud, but now I think I'd rather rip your head off and shit down your neck!" That's more or less the gist of what Grandmother said.
"Good Lord," Ripley answered. "Your breath is just as ugly as your face!"
I rushed to aid the little girl, who now stood watching the two combatants in catatonic horror. "C'mon, Newt. Let's get you someplace safe."
She resisted. "No! I want to see this!"
"Rebecca, she needs to be able to fight without worrying about you."
The girl blanked out, staring at her surroundings in bewilderment. "Where am I?...What am I doing here?"
"Rebecca?"
She stared at me, mouth agape.
Newt's eyes rolled back into her head and she had a seizure.
Worst possible timing. Ripley, noticing what just happened, came close to losing her head - literally. She dodged, but Grandmother's tail ripped a bloody gash along the side of her face.
"I got this!" I shouted to the woman. "It happens all the time!"
Swallowing hard, Ripley returned her attention to her enemy, clamping Grandmother around the neck with her machine arms.
Grandmother snapped out her mouth claw, attempting to punch a hole in Ripley's forehead.
The woman responded by activating an acetylene torch on the machine's arm, right next to Grandmother's face.
Ripley rapidly typed something on a keypad.
Red and yellow warning lights flashed as the airlock creeped open.
Pushing the slow, awkward crab machine to the limit, Ripley dragged my grandmother closer to the airlock.
The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij struggled to get away, snapped out her suaakudsi, but the woman kept holding the torch to Grandmother's face.
The inner airlock door whooshed all the way open.
Not sure what the intention was, maybe tossing Grandmother into the hole like a trash bag at a garbage dumpster? Whatever the rationale, it didn't work. Grandma weighed more than the little metal machine, and as Ripley shoved the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij backwards through the hole, Grandma flailed out desperately with her claws and tail, taking the woman along for the ride.
Crash! Thud! The two hit the bottom.
Artificial gravity. Still not certain I understand the particulars of how it worked there. All I know: Its force seemed to get a lot heavier around that airlock.
Not safe to lean over the edge and check our two combatants. As it stood, Newt, having recovered from her epileptic fit, came sliding across the floor the moment a storage crate flew up and struck me in the head. She would have fallen out into space, had not half an android, dripping intestines and coolant, grabbed her as she slipped near the hole.
As I helped the two away from the powerful vortex, I took a quick glance over the edge. Nothing but space. From my vantage point, it appeared as if both bitter enemies had dropped outside into the void.
I placed Newt in the shuttle, hurrying back to confirm what I already dreaded.
I leaned over the edge just in time to see Grandmother dropping into space with one tennis shoe clutched in her claws.
The human remained within the airlock door, her weary limbs clamped on a ladder like a dying cicada. "Ernie, would you mind closing that outer airlock?"
I did so, helping the woman up into the vehicle bay. Once in a position of relative safety, Ripley lay on the floor, panting for breath.
I sat down next to her, clutching my side.
"I just fought that big creature and almost died," she gasped. "Why the hell are you tired?"
"Someone shoved a sword through my stomach."
Ripley scoffed like I did stuff like that all the time.
By the way, since he'd been so useful helping individuals escape the vacuum of space, I'd moved Bishop to a more secure position on the floor.
The woman frowned at the disembodied android torso.
"Not bad for a human," the droid gurgled.
We moved Hicks into the Sulaco's industrially equipped medical bay, along with our badly damaged android.
Clean, brightly lit, stocked with good supplies, and some automated medical devices. The room possessed two tanning bed looking things that could diagnose tumors, bullet wounds and other injuries, perform surgery, and stitch things up.
Ripley hefted Bishop's upper torso onto a utility cart. "Help me with that equipment, will you?"
I obliged, picking up the large oscilloscope-like thing she indicated.
Our android spoke with coolant bubbling out his mouth. "Look for a splitter cable. Third drawer down on the left. Yellow and red plugs."
Ripley dug around in one of the room's multitudinous wall compartments for awhile, eventually bringing back a pair of cables matching the description.
The android tossed an incorrect one aside, plugging the other into his exposed intestines. The other he directed Ripley to plug the other into the back of the oscilloscope thing. Newt just stood by and watched.
The woman leaned on an examination table. "I still don't know what we're going to do with you, Ernie. The cryostasis equipment isn't designed for a body like yours."
"Is it absolutely necessary for me to have this equipment?"
"Ernie, I trust you, but I don't trust you that much. We're going to be spending years in frozen sleep. Although it's possible we still have enough food to literally feed an army, I'm not sure it's enough for an army that's awake for a decade. And then, well, I know your species. Sometime you're going to get big and lay eggs just like that thing I shot out the airlock. Newt did say you once killed a man."
"She also said I was sorry."
"I'd prefer not to be the subject of another of your apologies."
I glanced down at my injuries. The bleeding hadn't stopped. I felt weak and shaky. "Ma'am, I don't know if I will live long enough to harm you."
"No offense, Ernie, but it's still like taking a nap next to Count Dracula."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"My battery is charging," Bishop sat like a statue. Only his mouth moved...barely. "If my energy core continues to remain stable, I can instruct you on how to build an appropriately shaped stasis pod."
"Let's get Hicks treated first."
I helped her get the soldier into one of those tanning bed things. A rotating device analyzed his injuries, treated him with medical sprays, surgically removed infected parts around his eye and other regions of his body, stitched him up.
I watched the process with envy. I had no such repair equipment for myself. I tried to patch myself the best I could with bits of metal and such. If someone didn't give real treatment to my injuries soon, I could possibly die.
Worse, I desperately needed sustenance. I guzzled a few bottles of ammonia, but could find no suitable food. And this after I had been starving for so long. I felt ready to pass out, but forced myself to keep standing.
Ripley told me a lot of what she'd eaten for meals there was a sort of gruel. She said she'd try to find me something more substantial, but didn't know where to look. "...How long has the girl been epileptic?"
"It's been awhile. Someone operated on her brain. She hasn't been the same since."
Newt just stared at me. I don't know what she thought. It surprised me she just didn't go into a fit from the possible trigger words.
Ripley put her hands on her hips. "And when were you planning to tell me this?"
"Even if you actually wanted to talk to me at the time, it wouldn't have helped anything."
She stared at the girl in worriment. "Did they put something in, or take something out?"
"I don't know. I think it was mostly removal."
"I guess we can go to a neurologist when we get back," she muttered, mostly to herself.
We followed the medical machine's directions regarding Hick's bandages and such, moved him to a cryogenic pod for the long journey back to earth.
I asked Ripley how Hicks got onboard the shuttle, but she only replied, "Long story," and I couldn't get anything from the man himself at all.
Ripley checked the meter on Bishop's charging equipment. "So how are we going to build this thing's cryostasis pod?"
"I think we can possibly jury rig one from our food freezers, but it will require a lot of work...I can give you directions, but you'll need to do ninety percent of the labor." The android gestured to his missing lower torso.
"Man, I wish your legs hadn't flown out the airlock."
By this time, my adrenaline and my alien body's natural defenses to severe bodily injury had given out, and I frequently found myself resting on various objects, melting the floor and things I sat upon with my acidic blood.
Before I knew what happened, I collapsed on the floor, and found myself drifting out of my body.
[CONTINUES IN THE NEXT CHAPTER]
[ALTERNATE PLOT]
We began a sort of scavenger hunt around the space station, wheeling Bishop around to get directions on where to find parts for my cold storage pod.
Newt found a number of things to play with, a spare electrical switch (not wired to anything - she just carried it around, clicking it from the off to on position), yellow Nickelodeon Gak (a messy toy), and finally a phone with games on it.
Still in a lot of pain. Things were bleeding, melting holes in the flooring everywhere I went.
As she noticed me stagger and lean on things, the woman asked, "Will you be all right?"
"I don't know. Your machines are not equipped with what I need. I fear I will not be around for very much longer."
Newt gave my claw a reassuring squeeze.
Ripley frowned. "I guess we should hurry this up, then. The sooner we can get you in cold storage, the sooner we can possibly find someone to operate on you...or at least keep you frozen until they can figure out your anatomy enough to fix you."
But then she swore under her breath. "Of course, it's likely the bastards will just find a way to weaponize you..."
"I can only pray that this does not occur. The only weapon I wish to be is a spiritual one."
Ripley rolled her eyes.
As we rummaged through yet another equipment storage room, an alarm sounded, red and yellow warning lights flashing along the ceiling.
We froze, staring at each other in worriment.
"What's happening? Why are the alarms going off?"
Bishop spat up coolant. "The system is set up to warn us about asteroids and other unwanted breaches of the exterior."
Ripley's entire body tensed up. "Oh God! That thing isn't gone, is it?"
"Let's not jump to conclusions. Roll me up to a console." We hooked him to a computer next to the door, and he networked with the ship for a moment. "The good news is, it's not a hull breach."
"And the bad news?"
"It appears we have visitors."
"Visitors? As in plural?"
Bishop gave the woman a nod.
Her eyes narrowed. "Why would anyone come visit us? We don't need any soldiers...unless we're talking scavengers like the ones that picked me up from the Nostromo's escape pod, I really don't understand what they'd be doing here..."
"I'm getting a non-English repeater signal from the other craft, if that helps any."
"Non-English? Like Russian or Chinese?"
Bishop frowned. "...No."
The robot paused for a long time, appearing to be dead.
The woman shook him. "Bishop? Stay with me!"
"I'm sorry. My systems are shutting down. Perhaps you should place me in storage...after you introduce yourself to our guests."
Our `guests' had already `introduced' themselves into the vehicle bay.
An enormous louse shaped spaceship now stood next to our shuttle, its surfaces softly glowing and pulsating in irregular lava lamp patterns.
I followed Ripley up to the multicolored thing, gawking at the large mechanical pincers.
Wounded, hungry, and exhausted from the ordeal I had just gone through. I found myself collapsing on the floor before I even knew what was happening.
A pair of white boots marched into my field of vision. I thought I had died again, or hallucinated them. I stared with glassy fascination, wondering where this trip would take me.
The boots looked like gloves, with long `fingers' and opposable thumbs, the kind of footwear a human could not fit comfortably into. The boots ended in a pair of shiny white leggings, part of a form fitting spacesuit.
A tail shrouded in a white sleeve the same color as the suit curled out around the stranger's ankle.
The Sulaco's warning lights switched off, but the lava lamp patterns still played on the surfaces of our visitor's suit and the vehicle bay.
A masculine voice spoke. "Dusaq. Sikhib eurtep?"
I did not understand the words.
"Pikhisik kofoqinux?"
"Help!" I croaked. "Ammonia!" Then, realizing he might not understand what I meant..."Thirsty."
I would have asked for medical assistance, but I thought this beyond the realm of possibility.
"Ammonia."
The strange astronaut knelt down, revealing a nonhuman face and upper torso, obscured by a helmet and life support equipment.
Its eyes resembled symbolic icons of butterflies, a slitted pupil surrounded by four circles, its nose like a toucan beak.
A sophisticated space suit, adding no bulk to the creature's slender body, almost like a unitard. "Pikhisik kofoqinux?"
In Ss'sik'chtokiwij, I replied, "I am in great pain."
He didn't seem to understand.
"Are you in need of medical assistance?" he asked in English.
"Yes, but you don't know how."
The stranger stood up, and when it did, the dust cleared, and I finally caught sight of its method of transportation.
Not a mirage nor an angel from the Great Beyond. This being actually had a spaceship.
The U shaped vehicle, stood on legs like parts of a kneeling insect, a spheroid on one side, a projecting structure with a ramp on the other.
A door resembling a camera iris opened at the top of the ramp, and a female figure appeared, the details of her face and body indistinct in the glowing light.
The male said something to her, and brought out a large, spider-like machine.
Ripley and the stranger spoke to each other, but I was too far gone to understand what either said.
My consciousness faded. I only recalled them placing the device under me, and somehow floating me up the ramp, through the hatch filled with glowing light.
I felt myself floating, drifting out of my body. It seemed I actually died.
[CONTINUES IN THE NEXT CHAPTER]