Bang! The rear tire of the rover bumped over a large rock. A second cracked beneath our front. Great clods of dirt kicked up in our wake. I could barely see out the back windows, on account of all the dust and grit. The dome up front: Not much better - poor visibility, both from grime and the cracks it had received during the crash.
Dirty upholstered plastic interior, wrapped around a titanium frame. Dry soil puffed in through the cracked walls, the holes in the flooring, where carpeting flapped like a breechcloth before an electric fan.
The compartment smelled of old cigars, rubbing alcohol and machine oil. Everything hummed and vibrated like a lawnmower.
Ripley white knuckled the airplane-like steering yoke, foot pressing the accelerator to the floor. Our vehicle rumbled over the planet's surface at crazy angles, half jostling me out of the plastic seat I occupied. It came with a safety harness that didn't fit my body type.
I sat in the rear of the vehicle, under the watchful eye of Mister Hicks. The one eyed man, with his serious pose, scowling as he leaned on the hilt of an alien broadsword, would have made a great Frank Frazetta painting.
Newt occupied the front passenger seat, bouncing up and down. "Bump and jump! Bump and jump!"
Ripley cast her an annoyed scowl. "Newt! Calm down! I'm trying to drive!"
Newt ignored the scolding. "Bump and jump!"
Ripley opened her mouth to say something, but I leaned forward and tapped her seat. Hicks, alarmed, raised the sword to stab me, but I felt it merited the risk. "I would not discourage her. This is the happiest I've seen her in a long time."
The woman gave me an indignant glare, like How dare you lecture me on parenting,' but it shifted to reluctant acceptance. I settled back into my seat, in the process discovering only three bolts secured it to the floor. Hicks resumed his original Conan the Barbarian pose.
"I still think it miraculous that this vehicle survived a fall from such a great height, and still functions normally."
Hicks only grunted in response.
I'd made the comment loudly, to compete with all the noise, so Ripley heard me. "It's electric. My brother's toy cars were electric, and they'd still run after I threw them out the window."
"Still, a marvel of construction."
The rover rumbled on.
A lot had happened, very fast, to get us to this point. I stared through the dirty windows, attempting to collect my thoughts.
It had been a harrowing, confusing flight from that arena. I rightfully shouldn't have escaped, my presence in the rover a mystery, brought on by several hasty decisions.
I recalled...the Ripley impostor's death...
Newt leaned over the railing and sobbed until her captor yanked her leash and dragged her away from there.
I frowned at the body.
An impressive feat, tearing a robot apart with only three arms, and one of your four legs missing, but Grandmother accomplished it. I could only hope to have that much strength when I grew older.
...I noticed, belatedly, that the android's short cropped hair had been braided and knotted together with curly hair not her own, which, combined with dirty clothing, gave off a false scent. She still smelled like an android, but a Ss'sik'chtokiwij could come to the false conclusion that she'd disguised her scent.
The face...I have no idea how it been accomplished, but it had been sculpted into an exact likeness of the woman.
The voice also had been very convincing. I didn't understand how this could have been until the android opened its mouth like a broken Teddy Ruxpin doll, and, without mouthing the words, conveyed Ripley's voice like a radio: "Shit. I was hoping she'd last longer than that."
I could still hear the little girl sobbing. I guess she hadn't noticed the coolant.
The android smirked, its hand shaping into a thumbs up. It froze in that position.
"Shot me with a harpoon, blasted me in the face with a rocket engine, shot me out an airlock twice...chopped off my arm and leg..." Muttering complaints about the artificial flavors and preservatives, she separated the android's head from its neck, hurling it across the arena.
Grandmother grabbed me by the throat, clenching her claws until I felt my plates cracking. She glanced at the sky. "Bet you didn't know your birthday was today..." She bared her teeth in a snarl. "A satisfying circularity in ending your life the same exact it began!"
"How do you know what date it is?" I gasped.
"I can read the stars, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik." She threw me into a wall hard enough to leave me immobilized and aching on the sand. For a moment, I seriously considered felling her with a makeshift golf ball to the temple.
Another metal gate rattled open, and out stumbled Mister Hicks, also clad in a suit of armor, short sword clutched in one hand, shield in the other.
The man took one look around the arena and practically dropped his equipment. When I rushed to greet him, however, he came close to running me through with the blade.
I raised my arms in surrender. "Stop! I mean you no harm!"
The man gave me this look like he wanted me dead anyway.
I nodded toward the dead robot. "She was a synthetic. Are you an android too?"
Hicks...looked sick to his stomach. "No...I'm just...fucked."
"This indeed looks dire, but perhaps I can...run interference between you and Grandmother?"
"That thing is your grandma?"
"Yes. I understand you humans also have family disagreements from time to time."
He wrinkled his brow. "You're volunteering to be a human shield?"
"Well...yes, actually."
What transpired next: A bit like playing Keep-Away in a basketball game, me blocking Grandmother's shots' at Hicks.
I thought I was doing a good thing until Hicks stabbed Grandmother with a sword, and she used me as a bowling ball to knock the man down.
Grandmother grabbed my head and tried to tear my jaw from its socket. She would have accomplished it too, but Hicks took the opportunity to get in a good stab, so she backhanded me across the arena and crushed the man's hand.
"Hey, ugly! Up here!"
The armored individual from the arena gate now marched boldly across the upper stands, throwing aside its helmet.
A familiar, unsmiling human face.
Female. Her head shaved completely bald.
"Ripley!" Newt cheered from somewhere.
The woman leaned over a railing, blasting Grandmother with a suction cup weapon.
Although non-lethal, the sonar/force blast had the affect of a blow to the head. Grandmother roared and jumped up on the wall, ripping the railing out of its sockets. Spectators rose from their seats, scattering every which way to flee from the Great Queen.
Included in that fleeing crowd: Newt and her leash bearing captor. The girl struggled to escape, but the hairy creature kept yanking her leash.
Remember that Ripley is the woman that obliterated my sister with a machine gun. Although the sonar weapon did require a bit of training to use, she'd just practiced its point-and-click' mechanics on Grandmother, so with a little fast running, and diving into the proper Non-Newt-blasting position, she had the Yeti thing knocked flat on his face, searching his person for a key to the child's collar.
She retrieved them, but didn't have time to remove the leash, for then Grandmother's body crested the wall, doubtless presenting a terrifying view comparable to the flaming marshmallow beast from the Ghostbusters film.
The woman didn't flinch, she just hefted the child into her arms, and exploded some plant boxes in Grandmother's face to distract her.
I'm certain if she had found a rifle up there, she would have used it on Grandmother, but it seemed they had...a no guns permitted rule?
She narrowed her eyes, perhaps contemplating the same bad alternatives I myself had contemplated.
Option A: Shoot Grandmother off the wall, once more safely trapping her within the confines of the arena...At the cost of her boyfriend's life.
Option B: Allow Grandmother to climb into the stands, endangering Newt, her own life, plus the crowd of hairy creatures and the unsuspecting planet as a whole...
My thought: Perhaps climbing up Grandmother's back, hoisting Hicks up into the stands, and knocking Grandmother down afterwards, but I understood this could possibly be construed as suicide.
She compromised by grabbing a rope and yelling to me. "Ernie! I need a distraction! Pull on her tail or something!"
Well, she didn't ask me to kill her. I quickly rushed up behind the massive Ss'sik'chtokiwij, grabbed her tail, and yanked.
Not quite as effective as I would have liked. She didn't move an inch.
Worse, the tail swung like she intended to throw me across the arena. I might as well have been a fly on a horse's rear end.
I jumped on her back, applying my full body weight, as slight as it might have been.
Grandmother's grip faltered on the wall. She craned her neck around and snarled. "You're just aching for me to finish the job! Not to worry, Grandma will take care of you next!"
Grandmother reached back and threw me into the arena. Not sure which hurt worse, the fall or the impact from the throw, but I ached when I landed.
By this time, Ripley had the rope knotted on an undamaged railing, tossing the loose end over the side. "Hicks! Quick! Climb up!"
The woman rushed Grandmother, blasting her several times in the face, legs and trunk. Grandmother shrieked and fell from the wall.
Hicks caught the rope with a passable basketball jump. About as graceless as Laurence Fishburne's character on The Matrix, but he got up there, frequently clenching his teeth as he climbed, on account of the damaged hand.
Grandmother roared at me. "You are not a Ss'sik'chtokiwij! You're a traitor to your own kind!" She backhanded me.
If you're familiar with my story at all, you know my stance about murder and cruelty to humans. I've explained my position to several relatives, but my conversion attempts have so far been unsuccessful.
Once thing I haven't tried very often: Engaging my mouth worms, a method employed by my late friend Maria to great effectiveness.
To be sure, I explained the value of human life most fervently in speech, but she only punched me in the face, then gave me an uppercut. I sailed across the arena.
"You love those damn things more than your own family!" And she beat me with her fists.
I jumped on her head, tried to kiss her on the mouth, to communicate the thought with mouth worms, but she only grabbed my back and slapped me against the arena floor, battering me into the dirt.
She grabbed me by both legs, raised me like a folding chair in a wrestling match, brought me down upon an invisible enemy, for the purpose of battering me senseless.
Grandmother performed the folding chair move again.
"Ernie!" Newt's voice. "Stop fighting and climb the rope!"
Someone actually cared for me! My heart pounded.
The second voice...encouraging for a different reason: "Get your ass up here or we're leaving you!"
I noticed, with some satisfaction, Ripley helping the man up into the stands.
I quickly extricated myself from Grandmother's clutches.
In a tone barely audible for our distance, Newt called to my attacker...In Ss'sik'chtokiwij: "You don't deserve a granddaughter as caring as her."
Grandmother turned and roared at her. "You don't know ssogdisfi, you ignorant little pest!"
"I can't leave!" I called to the girl. "She'll get out!"
"She'll get out anyway!"
To be honest, I didn't need a rope. I'd only remained inside the arena out of peaceful respect to my captors (Saint Paul converted his jailers, you know)...plus, well, going alone, they could easily gang up on me and force me back into the pit. I used my climbing slulwidmi to scurry up the wall.
My audience had entered the stands via a pair of open staircases, one on either side of the arena.
The crowd may have scattered, but they still had individuals on standby to do damage control. The moment I reached the top of the wall, a small army of hairy men rushed us, firing rifles and sonar weapons.
The rifles fired...laser projectiles. A solid shell that created flaming holes in things they struck. As law keepers,' I suppose they'd been given the right to lethal weaponry.
I yelped as a shot hit me in the shoulder.
Hicks had somehow retained his sword. Whenever a shaggy creature got too close, he would do that slow windup motion or blade toss like they do in action movies, and ram the blade through its chest.
Ripley dodged bullets. Hicks got hit by a sonar blast, dropping to the ground.
A second blast sent Ripley sprawling on her back. "Ernie! Do something! Kill them! Stop them! Anything at all would be appreciated!"
I searched my surroundings for a defensive, hopefully nonlethal weapon.
The moment I picked up a broken railing, something exploded below the stands.
The arena trembled beneath my feet. Black smoke billowed up from somewhere below.
Although the detonation surprised me, Grandmother, and the creatures attacking us, Ripley appeared to have been expecting this. She flattened ' the hairy soldiers blocking the nearby staircase. When her suction cup shaped weapon ran out of juice,' she snatched up a rifle, killed a hairy soldier, and threw Hicks its weapon.
The man staggered to his feet, rifle in one hand, sword in the other. Whenever he fired a shot, he'd prop the weapon up with the blade.
His shots shattered a beast man's beak.
A bullet got lodged in another foe's breastplate. The creature lived, and Hicks got shot in the leg. His wound, conveniently cauterized, did not maim like a regular gunshot wound would have done, so he could still move fairly well.
Ripley cast me a scolding look when she noticed me not doing anything. "Ernie! Stop standing around! Kill them!"
"But they're intelligent beings that might possibly have souls!"
Sighing in frustration, she picked herself off the floor, toppling a nearby beaked Yeti with her weapon. "Fine! Scare them! Beat them up! Get them out of the way so we can escape!"
I smiled a little. "I'll do my best."
Charging ahead of her, I shrieked and raised my arms, performing a jump scare' worthy of an earth haunted house. Despite my cute antics in the arena, the action did cause a cluster of armed creatures to puff up like startled Persian cats and retreat.
I kicked and shoved six eyed Yeti out of my way, flinching when a couple tumbled over a railing. I imagined dropping to the ground outside the structure in such a fashion would be very painful. "Sorry!"
With rifle blazing, and a child in one arm, Ripley rushed down the open staircase, Hicks laying down suppressing fire to keep the path clear. Anguished howls and angry shouts in a foreign language filled the air.
I whimpered at the wanton destruction of sentient life, but I suppose it had been necessary for the attainment of freedom. I told myself that Saint Paul couldn't have done very good witnessing if they'd thrown him into an arena with a gladiator bent on murdering him.
I mean, okay...martyrdom has its place, but...
Hicks's and Ripley's weapons clicked empty at the foot of the stairs.
The enemy closed in, surrounding us on all sides.
Ripley tossed her weapon aside. "I'm out."
Hicks did the same, and he'd already picked up a second rifle on the way down. "Me too. Maybe if we go back up and search the bodies..."
But as he said this, the group of soldiers from the opposite end of the stands came rushing down, firing their weapons.
"Shit! Never mind!"
More foes surrounded us. Ripley and Hicks looked to me expectantly.
Swallowing, I charged the hairy aliens in front of me, but they only dropped me to the ground with their sonar weaponry.
A sudden explosion scattered the crowd.
A group of robed figures mounted on green reptilian beasts came riding up to us. For a minute, with the short bodies and darkened hoods, I confused them for the creatures from Star Wars, but then they uncovered their heads: Somehow, Sarah, David and Pillow had escaped imprisonment!
"C'mon!" the little girl yelled, tugging on her reptile's long rabbit ear. "Get your butts out of here now! We only bought you some time!"
David nodded, knocking out a shaggy bird man with a stolen sonar weapon. "What she said!"
I cast an anxious glance at the arena. "Wait! What about Grandmother?"
I suppose it wasn't too hard for Sarah to guess who I referred to. "She can clearly take care of herself!"
I gave a reluctant nod in agreement.
Ripley and Hicks stole weapons from concussed individuals, shooting anyone that got in our path.
We ran.
"So we're just going to leave Grandmother in the arena?" I gasped.
"She wanted to rip my body in half, so I'd say yes!...Plus, I guarantee she'll get her own ass out of that place, if she really wants to!"
It heartened me to think the woman had that much faith in my grandmother.
I...suppose that could also be terror.
We rushed past some Kiva type buildings, populated by smaller versions of the hairy creatures, a school, perhaps. Beyond this: An official looking stone building with some tough, muscular guards. They shouted, but we kept going, Ripley and Hicks repelling them back with gunfire.
"Are you sure that thing should be tagging along with us?" Hicks asked.
Ripley nodded, but she had a facial expression like one gets when going to the dentist. "It helped me fight against The Queen, and it understands English, so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt."
We ran down rows of bustling market stalls, bowling over individuals right and left.
As the entrance to the dead volcano came into view, Ripley stopped in her tracks. "Hey! That's one of our rovers!"
The vehicle stood between a pair of colorful tents, on the whole resembling a vehicle from an eighties science fiction movie: The underlying form of a Jeep with oversized tires, body encased in armor, but featuring domes, made of some toughened glass or fiberglass material, a threatening machine gun turret looming up top.
A pair of shaggy creatures busily detached parts from the engine and other areas.
"Hey!" Hicks shouted, firing his weapon.
The creatures fled at the aggressive act, leaving Hicks frowning at the damage the creatures had done. Ripley hurried Newt inside the vehicle.
Pillow sighed. "I wish we had some way to retrieve that android and put her back together."
David shook his head. "We'll get captured. Besides, she sacrificed herself so we could escape."
"We couldn't get Magellan either."
"Pillow, they're machines. Their chances of survival are ten times better than ours."
A crowd of angry Yeti pressed in around us. Projectiles pinged off the vehicle's armor plates.
Sarah and her companions exchanged uncomfortable looks, muttering in a foreign language.
"We can't stay here," David said. "We're going with or without you."
Ripley dropped another hairy alien with her weapon. "Go. If we get this thing running, we'll be hot on your heels."
They wasted no time leaving.
"Are you sure that was wise?" I asked.
The woman shrugged. "If we split up, there's a chance of one of us not getting caught...While we're on the topic, it'd be nice if you'd pull your weight and start killing some of those things, instead of letting me do all the work! Hell, I'll even let you eat and impregnate the bastards!"
"Violence isn't always the answer!"
"Maybe so, but it established a country..." She fired shots as she said this. "Stopped slavery..." More shots. "And a holocaust..." Bang bang. "And I don't want to stay here as a dead slave! They put Newt on a fucking leash!"
Newt screamed as stray shots penetrated the walls of the vehicle.
"Newt! You okay in there?"
The child gave a shaky affirmative.
Ripley madly fired at our enemies until her ammunition ran out, and she had to borrow from Hicks. "How much longer?"
"Reattaching the battery was easy. Those other things they yanked out, you need a computer to figure out what's wrong! I'm doing the best with what I got, but it's guesswork!"
"We're running out of time!"
"Tell me something I don't know!"
Hicks attempted to start the vehicle up, but it died immediately. Swearing, he fumbled around in the engine.
"You said If we and David split up, there'd be a chance of one of us not getting caught.' You think we'll be the ones not captured?"
She shot someone. "I can only hope!"
A tad high on the violence scale. Although understandable in some cases (we were being shot at), not always justified, and perhaps the cause of further attack. "Ripley, have you always been...this...bloodthirsty?"
"I do what I have to survive," she growled through her teeth, but I could tell she just really despised aliens.
"You and my grandmother have a lot more in common than you know."
"Ernie, say that again and I'll fire a bullet into your bible thumping cockroach ass plates!"
Ripley killed another, directed me to steal its sonar blaster, and toss its neighbor's rifle to her.
I've used a pistol and projectile weapons before, but honestly a lousy shot, except at point blank range. The sonar weapon worked somewhat better (not as much kickback) but still a novice. Ripley urged me to aim for their feet, so that at least the dirt would explode and cause them to fall over.
Our weapons quickly got spent. Ripley's weapon didn't have that much in it, and mine...drained by my own ineptitude.
"Hicks! We really need that rover running now!"
"People in Hell want ice water, Ripley! I'm working on it!"
We still faced an onslaught, bullets pinging off the vehicle's domes and panels.
Ripley jumped through the rover's open window. "Everybody watch your heads! I'm using the cannon!"
The moment the weapon made its terrible rattling sound, I cried, remembering the Ss'sik'chtokiwij who died at Hadley's Hope...all those deaths in the underground tunnels...that same exact model of cannon...
That dear Christian Ss'sik'chtokiwij who died bringing me a sewing kit...
I scarcely noticed the sound of the rover starting up.
"Ernie! Stop sniffling and get in! We're leaving!"
We departed the compound amidst chaos, shouting, bullets clanging off the armor, shaking and banging as we received blasts of sonar, or rolled over...not sure I wanted to know...And, of course, the horrible rattle of that infernal machine gun. I was glad when it clicked empty.
The woman had heard me sneeze and cough. "You're not sick, are you?" she asked as she came down from the turret.
"No. Just grieving."
The look on her face..."Good. Because if you give me a disease, I'll kill you."
Hicks really didn't want me riding along with him. "Can't we, I dunno, have that thing run behind us on a leash or something?"
"If it wanted to kill us, it would have done so by now. But you did give me an idea. I want you to stay in the back and watch it. If that thing makes one aggressive move, chop off its head."
"With pleasure!"
The hairy creatures followed us for roughly five to ten minutes on their reptilian steeds' before another freak electrical storm took place...the same type that took the life of my strange lover the day previous.
From our distance, couldn't tell what transpired, but we did not get pursued for a long time after.
Unfortunately, though, as I'm staring out the window, collecting my thoughts, the rover bumped over a section of soft ground and its tires got stuck. Shifting forward and reverse only served to force the vehicle further into the soil.