Ripley fell back, grabbed a strut support while her other hand
flailed at and contacted an emergency release.
That blew the rear hatch. Instantly, all the air in the shuttle and
anything not secured by bolt or strap was sucked out into space.
(Alan Dean Foster, Alien: The Official Novelization, 20th Century Fox Film Corp., 1979, Kindle Edition.)
When Kyle opened the cabin door, he found Twiglet and Uful’lan waiting for him.
“What’s the fuss about?”
Twiglet unrolled her tongue and glanced away.
“Er… I’m afraid we have a bit of a problem.”
“Er… yess, indeed!” Uful’lan wrung his shovel-sized hands.
Kyle groaned, his heart suddenly jumping into his throat. Until now, the journey had been smooth.
“What have you done?”
“Well, Captain,” Twiglet began, “I know you’re a reasonable man and—”
“Cut to the point.”
“Hey… what’s that?” Shirl said, stepping up beside him.
Something in her voice made Kyle turn.
For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating. Maybe the Aranui’s ventilation system had failed. Maybe the nitrogen levels had risen above safe limits, and they were all slowly suffocating without realizing it.
There was no other explanation.
Because otherwise… what was that thing?
A small, grotesque creature—spines, legs, and far too many of both—crawled across the corridor leading to the dayroom.
“That… that thing…” Kyle stammered. “Can you… See it too?”
“Ahem,” Twiglet said cautiously, “that ‘thing’ is precisely part of the problem. Remember the cryogenic container in the galley? Well… it wasn’t properly sealed. My food rations thawed out…”
“Wait—wait!” Kyle cut her off. “You mean those filthy bugs got out of the box and… and…”
Twiglet lowered her eyes.
“Thhath’ss righth,” Uful’lan confirmed.
“Oh, no. My ship!”
Kyle bolted toward the galley—but before he even reached it, he understood how bad things were.
The cockpit was alive.
Every surface crawled with a dark, shifting mass—elytra, antennae, legs, mandibles, in every shape and size. Most were small… but not all.
Kyle froze.
Hairy spiders the size of his hand.
And a blue scolopendra.
It perched atop the pilot’s seat, almost as if it were waiting for him.
“Oh, fuck…” Kyle muttered, covering his face.
“Maybe I could eat some,” Twiglet suggested timidly. “I think I still have room for dessert…”
As if things weren’t bad enough, the Aranui chimed in:
“CAPTAIN! WHAT IS THIS DISGUSTING MESS? YOU KNOW I CAN’T STAND BUGS!”
“Don’t worry,” Kyle said quickly. “We’ve had a minor accident, but we’re handling it.”
“I DO WORRY! I DON’T WANT THEM NESTING IN MY CIRCUITS! I CAN ALREADY FEEL THEM CRAWLING AROUND SOCKET 51… YOU MUST DO SOMETHING—NOW! I’M BECOMING HYSTERICAL!”
The lights dimmed. The screens flickered ominously.
“Calm down! Just—be quiet!”
Kyle tried to keep his voice steady. The last thing they needed was the ship’s AI panicking. Without it, they were dead. Hyperspace navigation was impossible without full system stability.
He had to think. Fast.
“How’s the oxygen level?”
“CURRENTLY, 86.4% OF THE AIR IS RECYCLED. PURE OXYGEN RESERVES WILL LAST SIX DAYS, FIVE HOURS, AND TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTES.”
“Drop out of hyperspace. Emergency procedure.”
“ARE YOU CRAZY? WE’LL EMERGE INTO A SPIRAL ARM! DEBRIS EVERYWHERE—ROGUE PLANETS, ASTEROIDS, COMETS! AT LIGHT SPEED, A COLLISION WOULD BE CATASTROPHIC!”
“Would you prefer a scorpion colony inside your CPU?”
“OF COURSE NOT! BUT SUICIDE IS NOT AN OPTION!”
“Oh, come on—it’ll be fine. I’ve got it under control. Now move!”
He turned to the others.
“Get into space suits—now!”
“What’s the plan?” Twiglet asked.
“I’m opening the main hatch. The bugs get sucked into space. We’ll lose oxygen, but we should still make it to Tr’lang.”
“Excusse me, Capthain…” Uful’lan said. “Do you have a ssuit for me, thoo?”
Kyle stared at him.
Seven feet tall. Two feet wide. Massive wings. Oversized hands and feet.
…Right.
“Damn it,” Kyle muttered. “Okay—Big Boy, you’re in the bathroom. It’s airtight. Lock yourself in and don’t come out. Hurry—before the bugs get there first.”
“I’ll thake care of thhem…”
“Good. That’s the spirit.”
Kyle spun toward Twiglet and Shirl.
“You two—move! Space suits are in the gray locker outside my cabin!”
By the time Twiglet and Shirl reached the spacesuit locker, insects were swarming through the corridor by the thousands.
Large myatropes from Kalamaris IV—waving tusk-lined proboscises—sniffed at a bundle of exposed cabling. Shirl stepped on a writhing trail of oporinies and purple cockroaches, their carapaces crumpling like dry biscuits under her boots. Twiglet moved more cautiously, casting dismayed glances around her.
She couldn’t forgive herself for leaving the container unsealed. How could that have happened? In all her life, she had never made such a mistake. Kyle would never let her forget it.
Uful’lan emerged from the galley carrying an enormous sandwich.
“Ssee you lather, girlss. Have fun,” he said with a laugh.
“I wonder what’s so amusing,” Twiglet muttered, watching the trail of crushed insects he left behind. Perhaps the k’rell found this chaos a welcome distraction from the monotony of long space travel.
Good for him.
For her, it was misery—guilt and dread, wrapped in a crawling nightmare.
Putting on the spacesuit proved far from easy. None of them fit. The suit itself was too large; the helmet, absurdly, too small. There was no time to be selective. After a great deal of tugging, forcing, and muttered curses, she managed to squeeze in.
Barely.
She looked ridiculous. Her head throbbed. Then an icon blinked onto her visor: oxygen flow initiated. A green light followed.
Thank goodness… at least the life-support system worked.
“Can you hear me, Twiglet?” Shirl’s voice crackled over the comm.
“Er… yes. I think so.”
Anxious thoughts crowded her mind. What would happen next? Would she starve? Perhaps the Food-o-Matic could produce something barely edible.
She remembered someone who had tried that.
After a week on human food, they had gone completely mad.
Kyle was already suited up, securing Wolfram’s carrier to a sturdy muonium handle. Getting the cat into the pressurized container had been hard enough; the dark, swarming mass now covering every surface was far too tempting a novelty after months of canned food.
“CAPTAIN, WE ARE READY TO RE-ENTER NORMAL SPACE.”
“Good. Start the countdown.”
“DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS?”
“It’s not like we have a choice,” Kyle said, wiping a layer of bugs from his seat. “Besides… there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’M SURE I’VE HEARD THAT BEFORE.”
An apparently endless systems checklist scrolled across the holo-screens.
“TWENTY SECONDS TO RE-ENTRY INTO FOUR-DIMENSIONAL SPACE… NINETEEN… EIGHTEEN…”
Twiglet and Shirl burst into the cockpit.
“Quick—strap in!” Kyle shouted.
Shirl obeyed at once. Twiglet hesitated, staring at the insect-covered copilot’s seat before reluctantly brushing it clean.
“Oh, Captain… I could kick myself for causing this mess!”
“… NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN…”
“Shut up, Skunks,” Kyle snapped. “Or I’ll do it for you.”
Twiglet fastened her restraints just in time.
“TWO… ONE… ZERO!”
With a violent shudder, the Aranui dropped back into normal spacetime at ninety percent of light speed.
The holo-screens flared to life.
A vast nebula filled the void ahead—deep red clouds threaded with brilliant blue stars, a region of furious star formation.
“CAPTAIN, THERE IS A HIGH PARTICLE DENSITY. SENSORS REGISTER APPROXIMATELY ONE MILLION ATOMS PER CUBIC CENTIMETER.”
“Shields to maximum. We stay here as little as possible.”
At that speed, the magnetic shielding would stop nothing larger than dust. Kyle checked the long-range radar.
Useless.
The readings were absurd—either the sensors were clogged, or they were flying blind through chaos. A meteor field of that magnitude should have triggered every alarm onboard.
Something slammed into the hull.
“What was that?” Twiglet screamed.
Another impact—stronger this time. The structure groaned.
Wolfram’s carrier slammed against the wall. The cat yowled in terror.
Meteorites.
Kyle hit a control.
“WHAT’S HAPPENING, CAPTAIN? ARE WE IN DAN—”
Twiglet never finished.
The airtight hatch slid open.
Explosive decompression tore the atmosphere from the ship—along with hundreds of thousands of insects- and instantly blasted them into space, where they vaporized or shattered into fragments.
Twiglet found herself staring at a fat yellow beetle smeared across her visor.
A moment later, it was gone.
Behind the Aranui, a vast trail of dispersing organic debris stretched across space—shredded, frozen, and evaporating.
Kyle slammed the hatch shut.
He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
Four minutes.
Maybe five.
That was all they needed. A handful of minutes—nothing in the grand scale of the universe. Less than dust in an hourglass.
Enough… if they were lucky.
“Prepare for hyperspace re-entry,” he said.
“I AM RECALCULATING COORDINATES. THIS INCIDENT HAS SIGNIFICANTLY ALTERED OUR TRAJECTORY…”
“How long?”
“TWO MINUTES AND FOURTEEN SECONDS.”
Twiglet’s red eyes glowed with anxiety behind her visor. Shirl looked more confused than afraid, gripping her restraints. As for Uful’lan—sealed in the restroom—he was likely unaware of any of this.
“One minute,” the ship announced.
Maybe… we’ll make it.
Kyle stared at the flashing red digits. Every second stretched unbearably.
All that debris… one wrong collision, one stray object, and the recalculated coordinates would be useless.
Time slipping away.
“TEN SECONDS TO HYPERSPACE… NINE… EIGHT…”
Kyle found himself praying.
He never prayed.
“… THREE… TWO… ONE…”
The impact hit like a cosmic hammer.
It felt as if a gigantic hand had seized the Aranui and crushed it.
Bulkheads buckled and screamed. Kyle’s seat tore loose from its mount. Alarms erupted—every system flashing red.
The antigravity field failed.
Weight vanished.
Kyle was thrown into the air—
—and slammed into the rear wall of the cockpit.
Too late, the proximity alarm began to howl.
Please return to the novel’s main page to read the first nine chapters for free!
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