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Can I dream?
Yes, honey, I think we both can.
—
“What’re you going to do when we get back?” Hicks asked. Ellen had gently tucked him into his pod, hands trembling as they carefully adjusted his bandaged body. She sat next to him, perched on the edge of his pod like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to crawl next to him and make sure he survived the trip or run away so she’d never have to find out if he didn’t.
“I’m going to wrap you and Newt up as tight as I can and then I’m going to hide you both from the world. Bishop too, even,” Ellen said. She reached down and moved a lock of hair off his face. “I’m going to keep you safe.”
Hicks smiled at her. “You already have. C’mon, Ripley, give me something trivial. Something to look forward to. What have you missed the most?”
Ellen thought about it and then huffed with wry amusement. “A goddamn cigarette.”
“Yeah? What do you smoke?”
“Balaji Imperial. It’s… Well, it’s what my old crew smokes. Smoked.”
“I’m sorry, Ripley.”
“Thank you, but don’t be. We’ve both lost people.”
“Never again.”
“Never again.”
“Goodnight, Ripley.”
“Goodnight, Hicks. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Ellen closed his pod and quickly checked all of their pods over. They had survived so much already, she wasn’t about to lose someone to a technical malfunction. Hicks, Newt, and Bishop all looked so peaceful asleep. Their faces were finally relaxed and open. They looked innocent of the horrors Ellen knew they had faced. Her heart ached for who they were, but she was proud of them. She was proud of all of them.
She entered her own pod and when the glass finally closed over her, she let herself rest.
—
Ellen’s dreams were red. Visions of the monstrous creature and her eggs layered and morphed with Bishop doing his knife trick, the blade coming closer and closer, Burke’s oily smirk, faces of the dead, Newt’s face, so small and scared, and Corporal Hicks.
The knife blade twisted in and out of vision, turning into teeth that dripped into acid that melted Bishop’s skull until he was the burning prosthetic head of Ash. The alien’s head loomed tall, swaying until it was picking her up as if it was a power loader, turning her fragile body this way and that while Newt screamed below.
And then, Corporal Hicks was holding her. They were embracing, and he was looking at her tenderly, except she was shaking. She was trembling. She tried to look in his eyes for reassurance, but she found it so difficult to focus. She was shaking and shaking, and she could hear his voice, but it was muffled as if she was underwater. Then she was breaching the surface of the sea and gasping for air, for life, and then there was red, so much red—
“Ripley! Ripley! Wake up!” Hicks said, shaking her. Ellen felt the cool waves of her dreams turn into sweat and gasped for air a second time, opening her eyes to red flashing lights as the emergency alarm sounded.
Her heart seized painfully and she reached for his shirt with a shaking, desperate hand. Her voice didn’t sound like her own when she frantically asked “Newt?”
Hicks clasped her hand so tightly she thought her bones might shatter, but he looked her in the eyes and tethered her. “She’s fine. She’s asleep. Ripley, you need to get up and help me pilot the ship. I don’t know how. There’s a fire. It’s contained for now, but I need to finish putting it out and check for repairs. The fire disturbed the ship’s autopilot settings and it’s going haywire. You need to get us home. Do you hear me, Ripley? You need to get us home.”
Ellen blinked and then licked her lips.
“Ripley!” Hicks shook her again.
She could still taste the salt water, but she blinked the sea foam and dream film from her eyes and nodded. Once, dazedly. The second time, firmly. She let Hicks help her out of her pod and onto legs she pretended were stable.
“You good, Ripley?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Go save us, Corporal Hicks,” Ellen made to pull her hand away to wave him off, but he kept hold of it and quickly pressed his lips to her wrist.
“I’m afraid that’s your job, Ellen.” Hicks smiled and saluted her before jogging off, when Ellen remembered his injuries. There was no time to worry though. She slid into the captain’s chair and began flipping switches. She had never piloted the exact model of ship they were on, but there was no time to wake Bishop and thankfully the technology came intuitively.
The ship reported the affected areas along with status reports on the machinery and Ellen was glad to see that their ship was in more than operable condition, with only a few processes needing to be diverted to other areas of the ship. Provided they didn’t run into a freak storm of some sort, their ship was in fine condition to carry them the rest of the way back to Earth.
She was finishing setting them back on course when she distantly heard Hick call for her. She finalized her commands and rushed over, pushing down fear in her chest.
As she drew closer, she saw Hicks’ ashen face and the fear crept up into her throat. He pointed into a dark corner of the ship. It took a second for her eyes to adjust, but the second they did, that fear shot through her body. She felt the hairs on her arms raise and her breathing quicken. Her heart pounded in her chest and her mouth felt dry. It was everything she feared.
It was an egg.
When would this hell end?
Ellen could feel Hicks beginning to panic next to her, which gave her all the courage and fortitude she needed. Ellen would save them and Ellen would get them home. She swallowed her fear and let it dance in her spine to motivate her, to push her. She could tell the egg hadn’t hatched yet. It was pulsing with life, but it hadn’t hatched. They still had time.
“What do we do?” Hicks asked.
Ellen took a deep breath. “Well, we need to get rid of it. It hasn’t hatched yet. We can’t burn it and risk further damage to the ship and we can’t kill it using any method that might result in its blood burning through the ship.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We’re going to move the egg and get rid of it. First, we need to cover it with something so if it hatches while we’re moving it, it can’t jump onto one of us. I’m going to find something. You’ll stay here and watch the egg and make sure it still hasn’t hatched. Do you understand me, Hicks?”
“Affirmative,” Hicks replied, face white. Ellen didn’t like leaving him alone with the egg, but he was already injured and she didn’t want to make him move more than necessary.
Luckily, it didn’t take long before Ellen had a metal sheet and long straps. It would be useless against one of the larger variants, the ones that prowled on two legs, but she doubted one of the smaller insect-like creatures would be able to force its way through a sheet of metal straight out of its egg.
“Now what?” Hicks asked.
“Now you’re going to stay here and hold the tray down on the egg while I retrieve our suits and helmets.”
Ellen kept her breathing steady and felt a surge of gratefulness at Hick’s determined face as he focused on his task. It wasn’t long before the two were suited up, taking turns to change and hold the sheet down.
“Now you’ll keep the egg covered while I pick it up and move it. If you need to push down a little, that’s fine, just keep it covered.”
Carefully, Ellen and Hicks worked together to lift the egg and keep it covered and then slowly moved it towards the airlock. Her breathing was labored and her arms ached with the effort, but slowly and surely she brought it right near the opening. Wordlessly, she began tying the straps around the both of them to keep them immobile and secure when they opened the ship. She was glad Newt was safe and asleep in her sleeping pod.
“Are you secure?”
“I’m good. Are you?”
“I’m good. I’m going to open the airlock now.”
It was far more anticlimactic than the first time she had forced one of the monsters out into space. She opened the airlock. She thought she felt movement and heard the thing inside, but it was too late and the egg and its contents were flung into space. Her body protested the outside pressure and it was even worse for Hicks, but it had to be done. Once the ship was closed back up, Ellen rushed to Hicks’ side.
He was pale and his bandages were red with new blood and her hands wanted to shake, but she forced herself to stay calm and steady.
“Careful, you look at a man too long like that and he’ll get ideas,” Hicks said, giving her a wry smile.
Ellen laughed shortly. “Come find me when you finish bleeding.”
Once again, Ellen slowly helped him into his pod. She wanted to unwrap him and give him fresh bandages before wrapping him in soft cotton and putting him away in the world somewhere safe. The pods would help him heal better than she would, however, and she settled for the next closest “somewhere safe”.
“Hey, Ellen,” Hicks said. “Thanks for saving us. Again.”
“You would have done the same.”
“What you said before. Can I?”
“Can you what?”
“Can I come find you when I finish bleeding?”
Ellen smiled and reached down to trace his face with her fingers. He turned his face to nuzzle them and she let them trail over his lips for him to kiss.
“Sure, Dwayne. I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
“It’s a date. See you on the other side.”
—
Ellen pulled out her pack of papier maïs cigarettes. She pulled one out and placed it between her lips. Before she could reach for her lighter, a flame lit the tobacco and she took a grateful inhale before blowing out.
Strong arms curled around her waist as she watched the smoke dance in the air before dissipating into the night sky.
“So what happens now, Corporal?”
Dwayne bent down to kiss her neck. “Whatever it is, we’ll do it together.”
Ellen smiled, brought the cigarette back to her lips, and dared to dream.