Time passed, and even with a long period of inactivity from the Xenomorphs, nobody could truly sleep with the tension hanging in the air.
Just before they expected to hear from Bishop, the turrets fired again. This time, when the shooting stopped, Zheng, Kris, Biscuit, and Ripley felt a gnawing sense of dread.
Hudson, still clutching the life-sign detector, looked at it anxiously. "I got signals. I got readings—front and behind us."
"Form a circle, backs to each other!" Kris ordered. The group instantly complied, with Ripley, Newt, Burke, and the unconscious lieutenant in the center.
"Where?" Vasquez asked, her eyes on the turret monitor.
Hicks echoed, "I don't see anything."
Hudson, tense, insisted, "Something's moving, and it isn't us! Tracker's off the scale—they're all around us! Jesus!"
Kris, Zheng, Biscuit, and Xuan, knowing the aliens were close, gripped their weapons tightly. Hicks and Vasquez ensured the doors remained shut.
Then Hudson said, "Movement. Signal's clean. Range, twenty meters."
Ripley, while hugging Newt, said, "They've found a way in, something we've missed."
Corporal Hicks said, "We didn't miss anything. We blocked off every access way from here to hell."
Private Hudson's voice piped up, "Seventeen meters."
Ripley, checking the tracker on Hudson's hand, said, "Something's under the floor. Not in the plans, I don't know."
Private Hudson: "Fifteen meters."
Newt held onto Ripley a little tighter.
Corporal Hicks said, "Definitely inside the barricades now."
Newt, urging Ripley to run and hide, pulled her arm, saying, "Let's go."
Private Hudson: "Twelve meters."
"Eleven... ten..." Hudson's voice trembled, his eyes glued to the tracker screen. The blips were impossibly close now, mere seconds away.
The room went silent, everyone listening to the faint scratching, as though something moved beneath them. The sense of impending danger was suffocating.
Then, Newt whispered, "They come at night... mostly."
Ripley, trying to stay calm for the little girl, squeezed her shoulder. "Stay close, Newt."
Suddenly, there was a loud clanging sound below them, and everyone jumped. Their weapons aimed downward, expecting the floor to give way. Kris scanned the room, trying to stay one step ahead, his voice low and commanding, "Be ready. If they come through the floor, we focus fire. Don't stop until they're gone."
As if on cue, the ceiling vent above the group rattled. Heads snapped up, and Biscuit shouted, "Above us!"
Hicks and Vasquez fired at the vent, but before the rounds could land, the vent burst open, and a Xenomorph dropped to the ground, screeching as it lunged forward.
The marines unloaded into the creature, bullets tearing through its black, glistening exoskeleton, but more Xenomorphs dropped from other vents in the room. One by one, they entered in a relentless swarm, relentless in their hunt.
Ripley pulled Newt back, trying to shield her from the chaos. Kris and Xuan fired in quick bursts, moving with cold efficiency as they tried to keep the creatures at bay.
Private Hudson, though shaking, managed to keep his finger on the trigger, spraying bullets across the room as he muttered to himself. "Come on! Come on! You want some? Get some!"
But the sheer number of creatures was overwhelming, pushing the marines back toward the inner barricades. Bishop's voice came over the comms in Kris's ear, "I'm almost there. Stay alive a little longer."
Kris growled in response, "Just get that ship ready!"
As one of the turrets ran dry, another Xenomorph leapt toward Ripley and Newt. Corporal Hicks stepped forward, throwing himself in front of them, firing point-blank until his clip ran empty. The Xenomorph shrieked and recoiled, its acidic blood hissing as it sprayed across the floor, eating through the metal.
Ripley pulled Newt closer to the center, away from the deadly acid. With the team forming a protective circle around her, they continued their desperate fight for survival, their ammo and energy dwindling by the second.
"Hold the line!" Kris barked. "Bishop will be here any moment."
More Xenomorphs pressed forward, relentless and terrifying. The marines braced themselves, knowing that they had only moments left before the last of their defenses fell.
Just as they prepared for the worst, a faint rumble echoed from above. The walls of the facility began to shake, and a familiar sound filled the room—the unmistakable whir of a dropship's engines.
Bishop's voice came through again, louder this time. "I'm in position. Prepare for extraction."
Ripley, with fire in her eyes, gripped Newt's hand tightly. "Hang on, kid. We're getting out of here."
The remaining marines unleashed their final rounds, creating just enough space for the group to make a break for it.
In the chaos, Carter Burke, driven by panic, decided to flee. He opened the nearest door leading toward the hangar. Seeing this, Ripley carried Newt and went after Burke.
Burke, led by his cowardice, locked the door behind him to buy time for his escape. Ripley, only a foot away with Newt, collided with the now-closed door. She tried to open it, but Burke had locked it from the other side. Ripley banged on the door, yelling for Burke to open it, but he was too busy running to hear her.
Biscuit saw Ripley and Newt struggling at the door. After emptying her remaining ammo at a charging alien, she threw down her gun and went to help.
When she got to the door and realized it was locked from the other side, she pulled Ripley and Newt back, saying, "Stay behind me for a moment."
Not waiting for the two to respond, she charged her fist with Nen and punched through a hole in the metal door, quickly unlocking the bolt from the other side.
When Newt and Ripley saw this, they were shocked.
The others also caught a glimpse of what happened but paid it no mind as they were still busy shooting at some aliens.
Meanwhile, on Kris's end...
He realized the aliens weren't thinning out.
Kris took this time to finally use his trump card and stealthily gulp down a power pill that lasted 3 hours. Feeling the power descend on his body, he was ready to re-engage.
He saw Vasquez trying to pull Lt. Gorman from some debris. Instead of fighting, Kris picked up the lieutenant and commanded the team to fall back toward the now-opened door. Vasquez, Hicks, and Hudson provided cover fire as Kris carried Lt. Gorman out of the room. Vasquez and Hicks followed, leaving Hudson behind as he rampaged, shooting at anything non-human.
As he was about to retreat, an alien pulled him down through the floor panels. Not wanting to be taken, he shouted, "F*** this! I ain't gonna be somebody's b****!" As a last resort, he grabbed two grenades, pulled the pins, and muttered, "Choke on this, you ugly f***!" The resulting explosion collapsed the only path to the hangar area.
Kris, still carrying Gorman, followed Hicks, who was now running alongside Ripley and Newt. A few aliens still pursued them, so Kris utilized his power and made it take the form of a long, sharp ribbon that he sent to the pursuing Xenomorphs, cutting them at key places, debilitating some while killing others.
When Kris and Vasquez caught up with Hicks and Ripley, they were cutting through the floor. Kris realized this was where Newt would be taken by the Xenomorph to its nest.
Passing Lt. Gorman to Vasquez, he used his ability and coated his hand with the sheet-like substance, willing it to be as sharp as possible.
He then used it to cut the metal floor like butter.
The moment Newt was in range, he grabbed her hand and tried yanking her out of the floor. But he was dragged down instead because of the unstable footing.
Enraged by the interference, the Xenomorph lunged at Kris and Newt. But he remolded his ability to form a strong flat barrier, pushing the alien into a wall, where it crashed and lay still. Kris then checked Newt for injuries, finding none, and gave her a small hug. He handed her to Ripley after climbing out of the hole.
Kris asked, "Where are Zha and the others?"
"The other two went ahead to catch Burke while we got separated from Zheng when we went after Newt," Ripley replied. "He was fighting an alien that came with the group at the time."
Moments later, Zheng appeared from another corridor, running. "The big one is coming this way!" he shouted.
Hudson's final stand had triggered an explosion near the Queen's location in the cooling system, causing a chain reaction. The egg chamber and Queen were engulfed in flames, destroying the eggs and enraging her. Zheng, having used a life-sign detector to track Newt, had unknowingly approached the Queen, mistaking her blip for Newt's. Shocked by the encounter, Zheng retreated with the furious Queen on his tail.
Seeing Zheng and his pursuer, the group bolted. Kris wanted to fight the Queen but knew time was running out; there were less than 15 minutes before the meltdown. Ripley and Hicks reached Bishop in the dropship, only to find Burke pinned down by Biscuit while Xuan was already looking out the ramp of the ship.
As the Queen closed in, Kris heaved Vasquez and Lt. Gorman up, shouting for them to launch. Ripley held off closing the bay door, allowing Kris to scramble aboard at the last second. The Queen lunged forward in pursuit, but Kris summoned his strength and forced her back, using his unique abilities to bar her entry.
With only minutes left, they sped away from the facility. Kris, breathing heavily, slumped down in the cargo bay, finally allowing himself to let go of the tension he'd been holding since the chase began. As they broke through the atmosphere, the crew watched in awe and relief as the colony vanished in a massive nuclear explosion below.
Yet, as silence settled in the cabin, a creeping sense of unease took hold. Unbeknownst to them, a few deadly stowaways had made it onto their ship...