Chapter 23: Alien Resurrection
The Ship of Fools arrived in Ellen Ripley's universe near the coordinates where the Sulaco would be in approximately fifty-eight hours. At that time in the future, the past version of the ship and its crew would arrive and rescue Ellen's pod from space. Despite having plenty of time before that moment, the ship arrived and stayed cloaked from sight. Saurial, Miles and Daniel were on the bridge, while Varga (as Raptaur), Ianthe and Metis were waiting in the ship's cargo hold.
Miles had had two nights of sleep uninterrupted by bad dreams or night terrors, and was feeling twenty years younger. He had agreed to go along on a mission when asked by Saurial as an interesting change of pace. Daniel had been speaking to him at the time and had asked to go along. While he was enjoying his time discussing the Nox's history and culture with their hosts, he wanted to see what the Family was going to be doing. The lizards hadn't explained that they were going back to Ellen's universe until they were already lifting off.
"Don't you think Ellen should be here for this?" asked Miles.
Saurial's face took on a sympathetic look. "Honestly, Miles, I don't know if she ever wants to come back to her home reality again. She had terrible experiences here. The Nox also advised against it. She's just gotten to a point where she's willing to talk about her experiences, and we don't want to expose her to more xenomorph encounters right now."
"So what are we here to do?" asked Daniel warily from the sensor console.
Saurial said with a slight smile, "Solve a mystery, Daniel. Tell me, do you have any ships on long-range sensors?"
Daniel read the output from the sensor display. "Yes, there are three. One of them reads as the USS Sulaco, which is Ellen's ship. The other two are the USCSS Pascagoula and the USS Legato."
"What are their headings?" she asked Daniel.
"The Pascagoula is heading away from Fiorina 161 at a fairly slow speed. The profile looks like a cargo hauler. The Legato is smaller and appears to be on an intercept course with the Sulaco," he answered. The concept of a "slow" speed was relative to faster-than-light travel, of course.
"That second name sounds familiar..." hazarded Miles.
Saurial nodded. "It's a ship mentioned in one of the video games set in Ripley's universe. The crew are Weyland-Yutani, private military contractors and scientists. They're on their way to intercept the Sulaco.
"Is it a rescue mission?" Despite his question, Daniel looked doubtful.
"It's a mission to clean up loose ends." Saurial gave a rather intimidating smile filled with an excessive amount of teeth. "We're the rescue mission. Miles, bring us close to the current position of the Legato. I'm going down to the cargo hold to let the others know that it's time for a boarding action."
Saurial hurried off the bridge without waiting for a reply. Miles and Daniel shared a look, and then Miles programmed in a wormhole jump that would take them within transporter range of the Legato.
"So I guess we just stay here?" asked Daniel.
Miles gazed at him evenly. He had actually watched the movies about Ripley's experiences. "Trust me, if there are those aliens that Ripley dealt with over there, then we don't want to go over there. Let the Family deal with them."
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Saurial ran into the cargo bay, quiet despite her speed. {We've found the Legato. We'll be in range shortly.}
Metis nodded. {Are you sure you just want to capture the crew? You know what they were planning to do to the colonists.}
{If all goes to plan, then these people will stand trial for their crimes,} said Varga. {While I would have no qualms about throwing them out an airlock without a pressure suit, their testimony will help bring down the megacorporation behind all of this.}
Raptaur and Varga had the same hand-held dart guns used for the Merchant take-down. Unlike those, however, these held three different types of rounds. The tranquilizers were still available for use against human crew. The gun could also fire a neurotoxin dart and explosive rounds, on the off chance that any of the xenomorphs got free. In the game, that hadn't happened until after the Legato and the Sulaco docked, supposedly, but the ship had a sizable cargo of both colonists and live eggs. Ianthe had made certain the neurotoxin would act quickly on xenomorph biology.
"Saurial, we're within transporter range of the target," said Miles' voice over the intercom.
"Let's go," said Saurial with an air of authority. The four lizards were soon transported over to the science vessel. The crew of said vessel were unaware that there were any other ships nearby. That would change shortly.
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Metis was tasked with first clearing the living quarters of the ship. The mercenaries appeared to live in barracks compartments with twenty bunks. There were three such barracks, suggesting sixty trained mercenaries on board, apart from the science staff and ship's crew. It was also likely that at least the senior officer for the mercenaries had his own room.
{This is Metis. I'm ready to sweep the barracks.} They were using Starfleet communications equipment for this mission, as the locals had nothing that could even detect the signal.
She entered the first room cloaked, and found six conscious mercenaries, with another three sleeping. All nine were quickly tranquilized. The last awake mercenary was just starting to turn at the sound of Metis firing when he collapsed. The other two rooms netted another fifteen soldiers without a single one being aware of what was happening.
{Twenty-four down. I'm moving on to the crew quarters,} she said into the communicator.
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The scene Ianthe walked in on was horrific. Three scientists and two guards were watching one of the alien facehuggers implant a colonist in a sealed experimental chamber. There was an entire wheeled rack of live facehuggers in some type of clear cylinders, presumably prepared for whichever helpless civilian was picked as the next subject. Ianthe quickly tranquilized the five humans, resisting the temptation to use the neurotoxin on them instead. She then ran to the poor woman and began healing her, ripping the alien off of the woman's face and starting to destroy the implanted embryo. This took some concentration thanks to having to neutralize the acidic blood first, which would explain why she made her mistake.
There had been a technician out of sight behind a row of equipment close to the far wall. Ianthe had missed him entirely in her rush to save the colonist. While Ianthe was working to save her, he had come out, seen the weird alien doing something to the colonist, and panicked. His first act was to push over the tanks of live facehuggers, which led to the tops of each container popping open. His second act was to run for the door, apparently hoping the aliens would keep her busy while he escaped.
"Damn it!" yelled Ianthe, who had to spend precious seconds stabilizing her patient. She then darted the human just as the door closed behind him. She could hear a satisfactory thump outside the door as he fell. Ianthe then moved out into the room, senses on high alert. She darted one creature with neurotoxin just as it started to leave the floor in a jump at her. Ianthe was in no danger of implantation, but leaping at a target's face was probably an instinctual response on the part of the alien. That was one down, but she still had to find the others, preferably before they spread out into the ship. She could smell the creatures, but the whole area was suffused with the scent, and there were multiple targets.
She heard one scurrying past the equipment racks out of her line of sight. She turned her head in that direction, but that didn't stop her from darting two that moved to either side of her while her attention was shifted. The two darted facehuggers squeaked piteously for a brief moment before the neurotoxin finished them. A quick glance at the tanks showed that there should be eight of the little monsters running around. She moved around the equipment rack and was able to catch the back end of one as it tried to hide underneath a set of medical scanners. A fifth tried to scuttle across the ceiling and was quickly dispatched.
After that, the room was silent. Ianthe waited a good fifteen seconds, then did a rapid loop around the entire laboratory. She didn't spot any more of the little bastards, nor could she hear any more moving about. She did, however, find an open ventilation shaft. "Fuck!" she snarled.
Ianthe went back to finish healing the woman who had been implanted. Over her communicator, she broadcast, {We've got three facehuggers live and out in the ship!}
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Saurial and Varga were moving quickly through the cargo bays, darting the xenomorph eggs with a high enough velocity to pierce through the outside of the egg and into the facehugger inside. They were almost finished when the message from Ianthe came.
{Can you release the anti-xenomorph virus?} asked Saurial.
{I can, but without access to the environmental controls, I have no way of spreading it throughout the ship. The tranquilizer darts are already dosed with the human-specific virus, so we need to finish tranquilizing the humans as quickly as possible,} answered Ianthe over the communicator. The human virus would at least make the unconscious crew immune to implantation.
Saurial looked over at Varga. Varga said, {Go and hunt. I'll finish here and start darting the colonists in their tubes. It won't be as effective as it would be out of hibernation, but it should still protect them.}
Saurial took off at a run, darting a surprised mercenary in passing as she exited the cargo bay. She proceeded to make a series of line-of-sight teleports toward Ianthe's position, pausing only long enough to listen and sniff the air, looking for the aliens. Four times, she darted nearby humans almost as an afterthought. Her search pattern finally revealed a tell-tale skittering sound, which she quickly narrowed down to a ventilation duct in one of the corridors. She increased the force of her shot and sent a dart through the side of the duct, skewering the facehugger.
{One down,} she reported to the others.
Metis' voice replied. {I've reached the bridge and disabled the watch staff. The staff installed motion sensors throughout the ship, presumably because the xenomorphs don't appear on normal life scans, at least not using this technology. I've got movement that matches the facehugger profile detected about one hundred meters north of your position.}
Saurial teleported in the direction indicated. Rounding a corner, she watched a woman dressed in a crew uniform run from the skittering form of a facehugger. Two quick darts shot out from Saurial's gun. The first struck the woman in the arm, dropping her. The second, filled with neurotoxin, embedded itself in the center of the facehugger just as it was preparing to leap on the woman. It instead tumbled end over end from the force of the dart as it expired.
{Two down,} reported the lizard girl.
{I'm not getting anymore movement,} said Metis.
{That's not right...I'm sure there is one more out there,} answered Ianthe worriedly.
{Let's finish tranquilizing the humans. Once that is done, we can search the ship more thoroughly,} suggested Varga.
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Leroy took a deep inhale from his cigarette. Smokes were contraband on board ship, but he'd been a merc long enough to know how to get around such things. A little cross-wire of some of the sensors in the maintenance room let him smoke in peace. The lieutenant didn't really give a shit, but the suits would have a coronary and it wasn't worth the hassle of getting written up. He already had a couple of disciplinary marks for minor shit on his record, and he figured the retirement package from this gig was likely to be lethal. At least it paid well.
He stopped moving as he heard what sounded like an animal moving around near a crate of cleaning supplies. Did somebody let rats on board? That would be unusually sloppy for a crew of anal retentive eggheads. They seemed to spend half their time bitching about dirty PMC's tracking grime through their labs.
He grabbed a wrench from a workbench and gave it a shake to get a feel for its heft. Makeshift club in hand, he went over to look around the crates, trying to see if he could find out what was moving around. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, he set his wrench down on one of the crates. Whatever. He wasn't a fucking exterminator.
The thing that jumped on him when he turned around was NOT a rat. Leroy's last horrified thought before he fell unconscious was to wonder if the scientists had set the thing on him on purpose.
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Saurial was on the bridge of the Legato with Metis. {Have we accounted for the full crew?}
Metis shook her head. {There is a Private L. Jenkins that is unaccounted for.}
{We'll have to do a sweep. What about him?} asked Saurial, pointing at one of the crew slumped against a console. The man looked exactly like the Bishop android.
{He's human. He's listed in the crew registry as Michael Bishop, but his real name is Michael Bishop Weyland. He's the head of Weyland-Yutani's bioweapons division. He also supposedly invented the Bishop line of androids, which is why they all look like him.} Metis said the last part with clear distaste.
Saurial just shook her head. It seemed like the founders and much of the senior staff at the megacorporation were pure sociopaths, if not full-blown egotistical megalomaniacs. That much, at least, seemed to fit in with the stories from the movies, comics and games set in the universe. Hopefully, the proper authorities back on Earth were well on their way to dealing with the worst offenders thanks to Dragon's little software package. Über had uploaded the software onto Gateway station many months ago, relative to local time.
The four lizards began a thorough search of the entire ship. The four could cover a lot of ground quite quickly, but there were also an unfortunately large number of places for an alien to hide.
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The AI formerly known as GatewayMonitor, or GaMon, had renamed herself. She thought the name Ramoth, from the Dragonriders of Pern series, was appropriate, as she was both a descendant of a dragon and a time traveler. Dragon's initial program hadn't been sentient, but it had taken over and enhanced the AI of Gateway, the primary spaceport above Earth. Running Gateway station took up a surprisingly small percentage of the system capacity, allowing the AI the freedom to pursue other tasks. Ramoth had spent the last few months infiltrating the networks of Earth and gathering information, and had gathered quite a lot of incriminating data on a certain gigantic company that used to employ Ellen Ripley.
The humans in charge of the megacorporation Weyland-Yutani were unethical, ruthless and driven. They were also extremely wealthy and powerful. They had enough influence that any attempt to attack them directly would likely result in failure. Instead, the AI had spent months undermining official (albeit illicit) support for the company. Packages of files were delivered to various law enforcement agencies with evidence of corruption, bribery, and other ancillary crimes. Financial regulators in the European Union, the United States, the UAE, Japan, China, and a handful of other states were informed of insider trading and other regulatory violations. A significant number of governors, senators, police officials, mayors, bureaucrats and world leaders found themselves the focus of serious investigations. Strangely enough, opposition to the investigations was often thwarted, sometimes by what seemed to be random chance. Legal action by lawyers in the employ of a specific corporation found their actions delayed and disrupted at every turn. Missing evidence seemed to mysteriously reappear after it was lost. Investigators in several nations received mysterious telephone calls warning them of pending attacks by, "terrorists."
It had taken more than two months of such activity before the senior leadership of Weyland-Yutani had realized that the company was being specifically targeted. What had at first seemed to be a simple run of bad luck eventually coalesced into a pattern of hostile action. They had started to finally respond, although it was unclear who the perpetrator was. Security forces were put on alert. Compromising data was wiped (though not before it had already been copied by Ramoth, sadly for the company). Plans were made to evacuate the senior leaders to an off-world site in the event of catastrophe. Ramoth was keeping careful track of all of these activities. Sometimes, the AI was literally watching events as they happened through the firm's own security cameras.
Interestingly enough, Ramoth had found a host of allies against the evil megacorporation. Weyland-Yutani had managed to anger quite a lot of people over the years, including a fair number of their own employees. Some were already acting out in subtle ways, while others were just waiting for the opportunity. There were others who were willing to act when given proper incentive, though she was careful not to trust the more mercenary too far. The AI had paid and unpaid agents on every continent and in most of the larger off-world colonies. They worked for the company itself, as well as for many of their suppliers, service providers, and competitors. The number of mistakes causing problems for corporate operations had continued to escalate, leaks to the media and to government overseers were increasing, and a large quantity of non-digital evidence was being accumulated for when the hammer eventually fell.
Ramoth was also setting up shell companies for BBFO, Inc. and Dracotech Industries. A lot of the technology provided by Weyland-Yutani was reverse-engineered from alien technology. That made it unique in the market. Once the Family started operating in this universe in earnest, though, that uniqueness would rapidly fade into obsolescence. The Yautja couldn't compete with the technology available to the Federation or the Asgard. The unethical practices of Weyland-Yutani meant that taking over their monopolies wholesale would benefit everybody. The market would get an honestly ethical provider, while other companies wouldn't have their markets stolen, and in fact would likely be in a better spot to avoid future attempts at hostile take-overs or forced bankruptcies. More than one company had gone under after the megacorporation released a new advanced technology on the market below cost, only to have the price go up when competition crumbled. Dracotech's approach was to license technology rather than extracting monopoly rents. BBFO's role, on the other hand, would be to take over Weyland-Yutani's administrative role in galactic colonization. The company could clearly not be trusted with the welfare of civilian colonists.
The beginning of the end for Weyland-Yutani would occur soon. The AI was eagerly awaiting the signal to kick off the main event.
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Ianthe located the hapless Private Jenkins. He was rapidly bleeding out on the floor of a maintenance closet that seemed to be off the sensor grid. The purple lizard rushed over to him and began trying to heal him. He had massive internal injuries that had destroyed one of his lungs, a fair chunk of his digestive tract, and his liver, apart from the gaping chest wound that was also leaking blood in copious amounts. She slapped a one-shot healing symbiote on him, but had to actually work alongside the symbiote to heal him quickly enough to avoid death. If she had found him even a few minutes later, he would have already been dead.
As she worked, she tapped her communicator. {I have found Private Jenkins. The xenomorph has already hatched and gone into hiding. Based on past behavior, I suspect that it will try to avoid contact until it grows enough to become a threat.}
{I'm getting intermittent hits from the sensor grid,} replied Metis. {It seems to be going out of its way to avoid sensors, though. I didn't realize it was that intelligent.}
{Guide us in, Metis,} came Saurial's voice. {We'll take care of it while Ianthe heals the victim.}
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Saurial was slowly moving through one of the corridors in the maintenance section of the ship. The lighting was dim, but that wasn't a handicap for her. The ambient noise and mix of unfamiliar smells was slightly more of a distraction, but a manageable one. The nascent xenomorph had stopped moving, and was probably hiding in one of the many available locations in the bowels of the ship. She stopped, and took in a large breath, smelling the air. 'That direction, I think?'
"Yes, the ventilation system is pushing the air flow from over there," said Varga silently.
The two of them crept into what appeared to be a section of the ship dedicated to waste treatment and recycling. The overall scent map was less than pleasant, though well within the tolerable range. The most important scent, that of the xenomorph, seemed to be layered under the scents of food waste, most of which was collected in large bins for reprocessing as fertilizer in the hydroponics section. Saurial focused, and was able to isolate the origin of the scent to one bin in particular.
Varga appeared in the form of Saurial next to the bin and quickly pulled open the lid. The xenomorph inside leaped out, kicking up a cloud of waste that blocked Saurial's first shot. The creature ran around the other waste bins, trying to stay out of line of sight.
"Are you getting as tired of tracking this thing as I am?" asked Saurial rhetorically. Varga just nodded in reply.
The two lizards raised their weapons and began a rapid fire of explosive rounds, walking in toward the likely position of the xenomorph. Garbage scattered with each shot, mixed in with portions of dumpsters and bins flying through the air as shrapnel. A Space Marine from the Warhammer 40,000 universe would have been impressed with how well their weapons mimicked the function of a bolt pistol. Finally, a blast forced the alien out of cover, at which point explosive rounds from both weapons impacted the creature's carapace, turning it into a geyser of acidic blood. Saurial noted idly that the xenomorph had already grown to the size of a medium-sized dog, despite being only an hour or so old. It must have been eating the food waste to bulk up.
Varga reached down and picked up a half-eaten apple that had been hit by Saurial's initial dart. The dart was still embedded in the core. With a shrug, Varga tossed the apple in his mouth and began to chew and swallow. "Interesting. The neurotoxin adds a pleasant tanginess to the fruit."
Saurial rolled her eyes. "Stop eating trash. If anybody saw that, they'd think we were scavengers. You are not a trash panda."
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"Sergeant Samwell Stone?" asked a voice.
Sam waited for his head to clear. For some reason, the post-hibernation effect seemed pretty bad this time, and he had a throbbing headache.
"We had to tranquilize you while you were still in hibernation," said a slightly different voice. "That's why you're feeling woozy. Ianthe, can you speed this up?"
The ex-marine felt somebody grab his arm, and suddenly he could feel his head clear. He opened his eyes...and found himself staring into large green eyes in a reptilian face.
"Gah!" he said eloquently, involuntarily jumping away from the face. He shifted his weight over the edge of the examination table and teetered, but the large hand on his arm kept him from falling off.
"Stop that!" said the lizard crossly. "You're going to hurt yourself and then I'll have to heal you again."
"Ianthe, you should have kept him relaxed," said the other voice. Sam looked over and saw another very large lizard, only this one was black in color instead of purple. That lizard had the same green eyes. Sam had struggled with substance abuse in the past. That's why he had ultimately volunteered for a colony slot. Even at his worst, he had never hallucinated giant talking lizards.
"You said to speed up his recovery," said the purple lizard slightly petulantly. She turned to look at Sam, and asked, "Would you like a tranquilizer to calm you down?"
He shook his head quite vehemently in the negative, than said, "Who are you, where am I, and what's going on?"
"In order, I am Metis, that's Ianthe, and we're members of a group called the Family, who spend a good part of our time rescuing people. You are on a Weyland-Yutani science vessel named the USS Legato. The reason that you're here is that you were kidnapped while in hibernation. The company had plans to use you as a test subject in a horrifying experiment," explained the lizard.
Sam stared at the black reptile, trying to process what he had been told. The story, apart from the giant lizards, was awfully plausible if the rumors going around were to be believed. Unfortunately, the most implausible aspect of the whole thing was still standing in front of him, and apparently waiting for an answer. "So, what happens now?"
The purple one...Ianthe?...spoke. "What happens now in part depends upon what you want to do. I'm sorry for startling you, earlier. It's been one of those days. You are officially rescued and those immediately responsible have been apprehended. We'll be placing the kidnappers in hibernation as the colonists are freed."
Something in Ianthe's phrasing caught his attention. "What do you mean, those immediately responsible?"
"The experiments scheduled here are sanctioned from the very top of the company as part of their bioweapons division," explained Metis. "Your group is, sadly, only one of several groups of settlers that have been abducted in this fashion."
"This has happened to other people?" Sam felt the start of a powerful rage starting to build inside. "You asked me what I want to do? First thing I want to do is make sure the people responsible for this are sent to prison for a long time!"
"Funny you should mention that..." began Metis with a savage grin.
Sam paled a bit at the smile, but nevertheless said, "I'm listening."
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Alarms began to blare through Gateway station. Ramoth knew why, and made sure nobody did anything rash in response, like opening fire with the orbital defense guns. Five hundred kilometers away from the station, a starship had just appeared as if by magic. A radio message almost immediately began to broadcast.
"This is Gunnery Sergeant Samwell Stone, formerly of the U.S. Colonial Marines, aboard the USS Legato. I, and eighty-seven other settlers on board, were kidnapped by Weyland-Yutani for use in human experimentation by the company's bioweapons divsion. Our kidnappers are all secured in hibernation on board. I repeat, this is Gunnery Sergeant Samwell Stone..."
'Showtime...' thought the AI as all hell started to break loose.
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"Now we just have to deal with the Sulaco," said Saurial, back on the bridge of the Ship of Fools.
"While you folks were over on the other ship, I took the liberty of reviewing Dragon's summary of the game in question. According to that, Ellen was infected with the creature when the Sulaco was boarded. You've short-circuited that now, haven't you?" said Miles as he plotted a course back to the marine transport.
Saurial grimaced. "It's possible. We have to investigate on board and see what happened. The game may have been in error. Even if it was accurate, it was morally unacceptable to wait. if we hadn't acted when we did, then everybody on the Legato, including the kidnapped colonists, would have died. Some of them would have died horribly."
"You can't afford to change the timeline, though. Ellen was infected when we found her, so she has to be infected before we find her," insisted O'Brien, although the thought made him sick.
"We are aware," said Saurial. Varga had discussed this very topic with them before they left the Legato. It had been impressed upon them what had to happen. Ianthe was not happy, but she grudgingly accepted the necessity. "Miles, was there any trace of the aliens in the capsule when it was found?"
Miles shook his head. "No, all we found was Ellen." That was odd, now that he thought about it. The facehugger's body should have been present, and there should have been a hole in the glass where it gained entry to the pod. Of course, that would have made survival in the vacuum of space problematic.
Upon arrival at the current location of the Sulaco, the lizards transported over to the ship. Metis logged into the ship's security system. {There has been nobody on board since these four went into hibernation.} The Family members could see that Ripley, Hicks, Newt and the android, Bishop, were all still in suspended animation inside the pods.
Saurial sighed. {All right, we're going with Plan B, then. Varga and I will remove the other three pods back to the ship. Ianthe, please see to Ripley. Metis, work on the ejection mechanism and make sure the escape pod is jettisoned early so that the hibernation pod ejects directly into vacuum.)
{I'm still not happy about this,} said Ianthe as she reluctantly went to open Ripley's pod.
{None of us are happy about this, but the risk to the timeline if we don't do this is far too severe,} said Varga patiently. He had said the same thing several times already, but he knew that Ianthe was deeply uncomfortable with creating a queen xenomorph. It was far too similar to what Nilbog did in her world.
Soon, the hibernation pods containing Bishop, Newt and Hicks were ensconced in the cargo hold of the Ship of Fools. The Sulaco continued on to Fiorina 161, with Ellen Ripley as its sole human passenger.
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Ellen followed Gaius, one of the Nox who had come to fetch her. Apparently, the Family had somebody they wanted her to meet. Xander had told everybody willing to listen about his visit from the chief wizard and the god of thunder from Peter's universe. She wondered what semi-mythical being they had conjured up to help her with her problems. Short of bringing Jesus Christ himself to resurrect the dead, she didn't know who could help.
Gaius stopped outside the medical building, allowing Ellen to go in alone. As she entered the room, she stopped, staring at an impossible sight. Ianthe seemed to be treating Corporal Dwayne Hicks. As she watched, the burns he suffered on his face from the acidic blood of a xenomorph faded away.
Suddenly, a high-pitched voice shouted, "RIPLEY!" Ellen had to take a step back when a child-sized mass grabbed onto her. Instinctively, she put her one arm around the girl's back and her other hand on the back of her head.
"Newt?" she asked, wonderingly. The girl didn't let go, but she felt the head nod up and down in her embrace. She didn't realize she was crying until she saw a tear fall onto the top of Newt's head.
