metal cage commenced its slow fall from the upper levels. An

  enraged shriek made her turn. A distant, glistening shape like a

  runaway crane was trying to batter its way through intervening

  pipes and conduits to reach them. The queen’s skull scraped the

  ceiling.

  She checked the pulse-rifle. The magazine was empty, and

  she was out of refills, having spent shells profligately while

  rescuing Newt. No more grenades, either. She tossed the

  useless dual weapon aside, glad to be rid of the weight.

  The cage’s descent was too slow. There was a service ladder

  set inside the wall next to the twin elevator shafts, and she

  scrambled up the first rungs. Newt was as light as a feather on

  her back.

  As she dove into the stairwell a powerful black arm shot

  through the doorway like a piston. Razor-sharp talons

  slammed into the floor centimetres from her legs, digging into

  the metal.

  Which way now? She was no longer fearful, had no time to

  panic. Too many other things to concentrate on. She was too

  busy to be terrified.

  There: an open stairwell leading to the station’s upper levels.

  It rocked and shuddered as the huge installation began tearing

  itself to bits beneath her. Behind her, the floor buckled as

  something incredibly powerful threw itself insanely against the

  metal wall. Talons and jaws pierced the thick alloy plates.

  ‘You now have two minutes to reach minimum safe

  distance,’ the sad voice of the station informed any who might

  be listening.

  Ripley fell, banging one knee against the metal stairs. Pain

  forced her to pause. As she caught her breath the sound of the

  elevator motors starting up made her look back down through

  the open latticework of the building. The elevator cage had

  begun to ascend. She could hear the overloaded cables

  groaning in the open shaft.

  She resumed her heavenward flight, the stairwell becoming

  a mad blur around her. There was only one reason why the

  elevator would resume its ascent.

  At last they reached the doorway that led out onto the

  upper-level landing platform. With Newt still somehow

  clinging to her, Ripley slammed the door open and stumbled

  out into the wind and smoke.

  The dropship was gone.

  ‘ Bishop!’ The wind carried her scream away as she scanned

  the sky. ‘Bishop!’ Newt sobbed against her back.

  A whine made her turn as the straining elevator slowly rose

  into view. She backed away from the door until she was leaning

  against the narrow railing that encircled the landing platform.

  It was ten levels to the hard ground below. The skin of the

  heaving processing station was as smooth as glass. They

  couldn’t go up and they couldn’t go down. They couldn’t even

  dive into an air duct.

  The platform shook as an explosion ripped through the

  bowels of the station. Metal beams buckled, nearly throwing

  her off her feet. With a shriek of rending steel a nearby cooling

  tower collapsed, keeling over like a slain sequoia. The

  explosions didn’t stop after the first one this time. They began

  to sequence as backup safety systems failed to contain the

  expanding reaction. On the other side of the doorway the

  elevator ground to a halt. The safety cage enclosing the cargo

  bay began to part.

  She whispered to Newt. ‘Close your eyes, baby.’ The girl

  nodded solemnly, knowing what Ripley intended as she put

  one leg over the railing. They would hit the ground together,

  quick and clean.

  She was just about to step off into open air when the

  dropship rose into view almost beneath them, its hovering

  thrusters roaring. She hadn’t heard it approach because of the

  howling wind. The ship’s loading boom was extended, a single,

  long metal strut reaching toward them like the finger of God.

  How Bishop held the vessel steady in the rippling gale Ripley

  didn’t know—and didn’t care. Behind her, she could just hear

  the voice of the station. It, like the installation it served, had

  almost run out of time.

  ‘You now have thirty seconds to reach . . .’

  She jumped onto the loading boom and hung on as it

  retracted into the dropship’s cargo bay. An instant later a

  tremendous explosion tore through the station. The resultant

  wind shear slammed the hovering craft sideways. Extended

  landing legs ripped into a complex of platform, wall, and

  conduit. Metal squealed against metal, the entanglement

  threatening to drag the ship downward.

  Inside the hold Ripley threw herself into a flight seat, cradling

  Newt against her as she strapped both of them in. Glancing up

  the aisle, she could just see into the cockpit where Bishop was

  fighting the controls. As they retracted, the sound of the

  landing legs pulling free echoed through the little vessel. She

  slammed home the latches on her seat harness, wrapped both

  arms tightly around Newt.

  ‘Punch it, Bishop!’

  The entire lower level of the station vanished in an

  expanding fireball. The ground heaved, earth and metal

  vapourizing as the dropship erupted skyward. Its engines fired

  hard, and the resultant gees slammed Ripley and Newt back in

  their seat. No comfortable, gradual climb to orbit this time.

  Bishop had the engines open full throttle as the dropship

  clawed its way through the blighted atmosphere. Ripley’s back

  protested even as she mentally urged Bishop to increase the

  velocity.

  As they left blue for black, the clouds lit up from beneath. A

  bubble of white-hot gas burst through the troposphere. The

  shock wave from the thermonuclear explosion rattled the ship

  but didn’t damage it, and they continued to climb toward high

  orbit.

  Within the metal bottle Ripley and Newt stared out a

  viewport, watching as the blinding flare dissipated behind

  them. Then Newt slumped against Ripley’s shoulder and

  began to cry quietly. Ripley rocked her and stroked her hair.

  ‘It’s okay, baby. We made it. It’s over.’

  Ahead of them the great, ungainly bulk of the Sulaco hung in

  geo-synchronous orbit, awaiting the arrival of its smaller

  offspring. On Bishop’s command the dropship rose until

  docking grapples snapped home, lifting them into the cargo

  bay. The outer lock doors cycled shut. Automatic warning

  lights swept the dark, deserted chamber, and a warning horn

  ceased hooting. Excess engine heat was vented as the cavernous

  hold filled with air.

  Within the ship Bishop stood behind Ripley while she knelt

  beside the comatose Hicks. She glanced questioningly at the

  android.

  ‘I gave him another shot for the pain. He kept insisting that he

  didn’t need it, but he didn’t fight the injection. Strange thing,

  pain. Stranger to me still, this peculiar inner need of certain

  types of humans to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Many are the

  times I’m glad I’m synthetic.’

  ‘We need to get him to the Sulaco’s medical ward,’ she replied,

  rising. ‘If you can get his arms, I’ll take his feet.’

  Bishop smiled. ‘He is resting comfortably now. It will be better

  for him if we jostle him as little as possible. And you are tired.

  For that matter, I’m tired. It’ll be easier if we get a stretcher.’

  Ripley hesitated, looking down at Hicks, then nodded.

  ‘You’re right, of course.’

  Picking up Newt, she preceded the android down the aisle

  leading to the extended loading ramp. They could have a

  self-propelling stretcher back for Hicks in a few minutes. Bishop

  continued to talk.

  ‘I’m sorry if I gave you a scare when you emerged onto the

  landing platform and saw the ship missing, but the site had

  simply become too unstable. I was afraid I’d lose the ship if I

  remained docked. It was simpler and safer to hover a short

  distance away. Close to the ground, the wind is not as strong. I

  had a monitor on the exit all the time so that I’d know when you

  arrived.’

  ‘Wish I’d known that at the time.’

  ‘I know. I had to circle and hope that things didn’t get too

  rough to take you off. In the absence of human direction I had

  to use my own judgment, according to my programming. I’m

  sorry if I didn’t handle it the best way.’

  They were halfway down the loading ramp. She paused and

  put a hand on his shoulder, stared evenly into artificial eyes.

  ‘You did okay, Bishop.’

  ‘Well, thanks, I—?’ He stopped in mid-sentence, his attention

  focused on something glimpsed out of the corner of one eye.

  Nothing, really. An innocuous drop of liquid had splashed

  onto the ramp next to his shoe. Condensate from the skin of

  the dropship.

  The droplet began to hiss as it started to eat into the metal

  ramp. Acid.

  Something sharp and glistening burst from the centre of his

  chest, spraying Ripley with milky android internal fluid. An

  alien stinger, queen-size, driving straight through him from

  behind. Bishop thrashed, uttering meaningless machine noises

  and clutching the protruding point of the spear as it slowly

  lifted him off the landing ramp.

  The queen had concealed herself among the landing

  mechanism inside one strut bay. The atmospheric plates that

  normally sealed the bay flush with the rest of the dropship’s

  skin had been bent aside or ripped away. She’d blended in

  perfectly with the rest of the heavy machinery until she began

  to emerge.

  Seizing Bishop in two huge hands, she ripped him apart and

  flung the two halves aside. Rotating warning lights flashed on

  her shining dark limbs as she slowly descended to the deck, still

  smoking where Ripley had half fried her. Acid dripped from

  minor wounds that were healing rapidly. Sextuple limbs

  unfolded in unhuman geometries.

  Breaking out of her paralysis, Ripley lowered Newt to the

  deck without taking her eyes off the descending nightmare.

  ‘Go!’

  Newt bolted for the nearest cluster of packing crates and

  equipment. The alien dropped to the deck and pivoted in the

  direction of the movement. Ripley backed clear, waving her

  arms and shouting, making faces, jumping up and down—

  doing anything and everything she could think of to draw the

  monster’s attention away from the fleeing child.

  Her decoying action was successful. The giant whirled,

  moving much too quickly for anything so huge, and sprang as

  Ripley sprinted for the oversize internal storage door that

  dominated the far end of the cargo hold. Massive feet boomed

  on the deck behind her.

  She cleared the door and flailed at the ‘close’ switch. The

  barrier whirred as it complied with the command, moving

  much faster than the doors of the now vanished station. An

  echoing whang reverberated through the storage room as the

  alien struck the solid wall an instant too late.

  Ripley didn’t have time to stand around to see if the door

  would hold. She moved rapidly among bulky, dark shapes,

  searching for a particular one.

  Outside, the queen’s attention was drawn from the stubborn

  barrier to visible movement. A network of trenchlike service

  channels protected by heavy metal grillwork underlaid the

  cargo bay deck like the tributaries of a river system. The

  channels were just deep enough for Newt to enter. She’d

  dropped through one service opening and had begun

  crawling, scurrying toward the other end of the cargo bay like

  a burrowing rabbit.

  The alien tracked the movement. Talons swooped, ripped

  up a section of grillwork just behind the frantic child. Newt

  tried to move faster, scrambling desperately as another piece of

  grille disappeared right at her heels. The next to go would be

  directly above her.

  The alien paused in mid-reach at the sound of the heavy

  storage room door grinding open behind her. In the opening

  stood a massive, articulated silhouette.

  Riding two tons of hardened steel, Ripley strode out in the

  powerloader. Her hands were inside waldo gloves while her

  feet rested in similar receptacles attached to the floor controls

  of the safety cab. Wearing the loader like high-tech armour,

  she advanced on the watching queen. The loader’s ponderous

  feet boomed against the deck plates. Ripley’s face was a mask of

  maternal fury devoid of fear.

  ‘Get away from her, you!’

  The queen emitted an inhuman screech and leapt at the

  oncoming machine.

  Ripley threw her arm in a movement not normally associated

  with the activities of powerloaders or similar devices, but the

  elegant machine reacted perfectly. One massive hydraulic arm

  slammed into the alien’s skull and threw it back against the

  wall. The queen reacted instantly and charged again, only to

  crash into a backhand that literally landed like a ton. She fell

  backward into a pile of heavy loading equipment.

  ‘Come on!’ Ripley wore a frenzied, distorted smile. ‘Come

  on!’

  Tail lashing with rage, the queen charged the loader a third

  time. Four biomechanical arms swung at the loader’s two. The

  great stinger stabbed at the flanks and underside of the loader,

  glancing harmlessly off solid metal. Ripley parried and struck

  with sweeping blows of the steel tines, backing up the loader,

  then advancing, pivoting to keep the machine’s arms between

  her and the queen. The battle moved across the deck,

  demolishing packing crates, portable instrumentation, small

  machinery, everything in the path of the fight. The cargo bay

  echoed with the nightmarish sounds of two dragons battling to

  the death.

  Getting the two powerful mechanical hands around a pair of

  alien arms, Ripley clenched her own fingers tight inside the

  waldoes, crushing both biomechanical limbs. The queen

  writhed with outrage, the talons of her other hands coming

  within inches of penetrating the safety cage to tear the tiny

  human apart. Ripley raised her arms, lifting the queen off the

  deck. The loader’s engine groaned as it protested against the

  excessive weight. Hind legs ripped at the machine, denting the

  safety cage protecting its operator. The alien skull inclined

  toward her, and the outer jaws began to part. Ripley clung

  grimly to her controls.

  The inner striking teeth exploded toward her. She ducked,

  and they slammed into the seat cushion behind her in an

  explosion of gelatinous drool. Yellow acid foamed over the

  hydraulic arms, crawling toward the safety cage. The queen

  tore at high-pressure hoses. Purple fluid sprayed in all

  directions, machine blood mixing with alien blood.

  As it lost hydraulic pressure on one side the loader crumpled

  and fell over. The queen immediately rolled to get on top of it,

  avoiding the crushing metal arms, trying to find a way to

  penetrate the safety cage. Ripley hit a switch on the loader’s

  console, and its cutting torch came to life, the intense blue

  flame firing straight into the alien’s face. It screamed and drew

  back, dragging the loader with it. As she fell and the world was

  turned upside down around her, Ripley’s safety harness kept

  her secured to the driver’s seat.

  Together machine, biomechanoid, and human rolled into

  the rectangular pit of the loading dock. The loader landed on

  top of the alien, crushing part of its torso and pinning it

  beneath its great weight. Acid began to seep in a steady flow

  from the badly damaged body.

  Ripley’s eyes widened as she fought with the loader’s controls.

  The dripping acid spread out over the airlock doors and began

  to smoke as it started eating its way through the superstrong

  alloy. Beyond the outer lock lay void.

  As the first tiny holes appeared, she struggled to unstrap

  herself from the driver’s seat. Air began to leave the Sulaco as

  the insatiable emptiness of space sucked at the ship. A rising

  wind tore at Ripley as she stumbled clear of the loader.

  Jumping a puddle of smoking acid, she grabbed at the bottom

  rungs of the ladder that was built into the wall of the airlock.

  One hand slapped the inner door’s emergency override.

  Above, the heavy inner airlock doors began rumbling toward

  each other like steel jaws. She climbed wildly.

  Beneath her, the first holes widened, were joined by others as

  the acid did its work. The flow of escaping air around her

 

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