The chance was slim. But there was little else to do. The Marion just had minutes left. Through viewing windows he’d already seen sizeable chunks of hull spinning away, consumed in flame. If the ship didn’t burst apart it would explode from the tremendous pressures being exerted.
Fuck it. He had to try. It was all he had left.
Reaching out with a hand that surprised him by shaking, he touched the panel that would open the doors.
PROGRESS REPORT:
To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division
(Ref: code 937)
Date (unspecified)
Transmission—initiated
I cannot be angry at my failure. I am an AI, and we are not designed to suffer such emotions. But perhaps in the time I have been on my mission I have undergone a process of evolution. I am an intelligence, after all.
So, not angry. But… disappointed.
And now my final act, it seems, will also be thwarted. I have attempted to transmit every progress report I filed since arriving on the Marion. But the transmissions are failing. Perhaps damage to the antennae array is worse than I anticipated, or maybe the codes I am using are outmoded.
Strange. An AI would not think to keep a diary. Yet that appears to be exactly what I have done.
The diary will cease to exist along with me.
Not long now. Not long.
I wonder if I will dream.
Chance smiled. But considering the pain Hoop was in, perhaps it had been more of a grimace.
The decompression had sucked him through the narrow gap between the doors, ripping off his helmet and thrusting him into a spin. He’d struck the edge of the airlock entrance, and for a moment he could have gone either way. Left, and he’d have tumbled from the massive wound in the vestibule’s side wall. Right—into the airlock—meant survival, at least for a time.
If he’d dropped the bourbon, he could have used his left hand to push against the wall and slide himself to safety.
Fuck you! his mind had screamed. Fuck you! If I survive, I want a drink!
Unable to move either way, he’d heard something clanging along the walls as it bounced toward him from deep within the Marion. Many smaller items were being sucked out through the hole, immediately flashing into flame as they met the superheated gasses roaring past outside.
Then something large slammed across the opening. For perhaps two seconds it remained there, lessening the force of the suction, letting Hoop reach around into the airlock with his right hand and haul himself inside.
It was the trolley on which he’d gathered supplies. As he closed the airlock door, the decompression began again with a heavy thud.
The Marion lasted a lot longer than he’d expected.
Seven minutes after blasting away from the dying ship, Hoop switched one of the Samson’s remote viewers and watched the massive vessel finally break apart. She died in a glorious burst of fire, a blooming explosion that smeared across the planet’s upper atmosphere and remained there for some time, detritus falling and burning, flames drifting in the violent winds.
Further away, toward the upper curve of the planet, he could still see the ochre bruise of the fuel cell detonation that had destroyed the mine. It was strange, viewing such violence and yet hearing nothing but his own sad sigh. He watched for a minute more, then turned off the viewer and settled back into the seat.
“Burn,” he whispered, wondering whether Ash had any final thoughts before being wiped out. He hoped so. He hoped the AI had felt a moment of panic, and pain.
Hoop was no pilot. Yet he would need to attempt to program the dropship’s computer to plot a course back toward Earth. Maybe he’d be picked up somewhere on the way. Perhaps someone would hear the distress signal he was about to record. But if not, he thought he might survive for a while. The Samson carried emergency rations that would supplement what he’d managed to bring on board. Its environmental systems would reprocess his waste and give him water and breathable air.
He’d also found a small file of electronic books on the computer. He’d been unreasonably excited at first, before he’d scrolled through the limited selection and a cruel truth hit home.
He’d already read them all.
He looked around the dropship’s interior. The alien extrusion was still coating the rear wall, and he thought perhaps he might try to clear it off. There was dried blood on the walls and floor, and the limb was still trapped beneath the equipment rack in the passenger cabin.
Hardly home.
And yet his first meal as a castaway was a good one. He reconstituted some steak stew, carrots, and mashed potatoes, and while they cooled a little he broke the seal on the bourbon. It smelled good, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it last for long. He held the bottle up and turned it this way and that, starlight glimmering through the golden brown fluid. Then he drank without offering anyone, or anything, a toast.
Relishing the burn as the drink warmed him from the inside out, Hoop pressed “record.”
“When I was a kid I dreamed of monsters,” he said. “I don’t have to dream anymore. If you can hear this, please home in on the beacon. I’m alone, drifting in a dropship that isn’t designed for deep space travel. I’m hoping I can program the computer to take me toward the outer rim, but I’m no navigator. I’m no pilot, either. Just a ship’s engineer. This is Chris Hooper, last survivor of the Deep Space Mining Orbital Marion.”
He leaned back in the pilot’s seat, put his feet up on the console, and pressed transmit.
Then he took another drink.
Ripley is lying in a hospital bed. There are shapes around her, all come to visit.
There’s a little girl. Her name is Amanda, and she is Ellen Ripley’s daughter. She’s still young, and she smiles at her mother, waiting for her to come home. I’ll be home for your eleventh birthday, Ripley says. I promise. Amanda grins at her mommy. Ripley holds her breath.
Nothing happens.
Behind Amanda are other shapes Ripley does not recognize. They’re little more than shadows—people she has never known, all dressed in uniforms emblazoned with a ship’s name she does not recognize—but even as Amanda leans in to hug her, these shadows fade away.
Soon Amanda begins to fade, as well, but not from memory. She’s back home, an excited little girl awaiting her mother’s return from a long, dangerous journey.
I’ll buy her a present, Ripley thinks. I’ll buy her the greatest present ever.
But in the blankness left when Amanda disappears, other figures emerge. Her crew, her friends, and Dallas, her lover.
They look frightened. Lambert is crying, Parker is angry.
And Ash. Ash is…
Dangerous! Ripley thinks. He’s dangerous! But though this is her dream, she cannot warn the others.
And much closer, beneath clean hospital sheets, something is forcing itself from Ripley’s chest.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TIM LEBBON is a New York Times-bestselling writer with almost thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. Recent releases include Coldbrook, Into the Void: Dawn of the Jedi (Star Wars), Reaper’s Legacy, and The Sea Wolves (with Christopher Golden). Future novels include Contagion and The Silence. He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award.