BUG STOMPERS by JPC

BUG STOMPERS

CHAPTER 1 – GOODBYES

Wierzbowski... Spunkmeyer... Dietrich... Ferro... Frost... Crowe... Drake... Vasquez... Hudson... Apone... They were all dead. And so was Gorman, the rookie Lieutenant. No one ever figured out what happened to the Carter Burke, the company man, but there was not a chance in hell that he could have survived out there anyway. Even if he had escaped out of the colony compound without running into any of the Aliens, he wouldn't have cleared the blast radius from the explosion at the atmosphere processor.
No one cared whether Burke had lived or died anyway. No one...

Corporal Dwayne Hicks, lone survivor of the elite US Colonial Marine team, sat on the cold metal floor, his aching back against the cold metal wall of the Sulaco’s secondary dropship, smoking a cigarette. A white bandage covered the left side of his face and another bandage protected the injury to his chest and left shoulder. He recalled that when he had blown the shit out of that last Alien, he and Ripley had just gotten into the lift. The door hesitated to close, even after he had punched the button hard several times. Just as the door started to close, an Alien launched itself toward them, preventing the door from closing any further. Pure reflex had caused Hicks to raise his pulse rifle and fire it at the creature. Its head blew open and its acid blood sprayed all over his chest, eating through his ‘unbreakable’ armor and burning his flesh.

And then Ripley went after the kid. He couldn't figure out how she had held it together down there while he had lost two thirds of his entire team in less than fifteen minutes. She managed to locate Newt and rescued her, all while being pursued by what Ripley later described to him as quite literally being ‘The Mother of all Aliens’. The Alien Queen bitch responsible for laying all the eggs in the colony's atmospheric processor.

As soon as the dropship had cleared the planets atmosphere Hicks knew everything would be OK, he just knew there was nothing else that could go wrong. The Aliens were all dead, Ripley had managed to escape the Queen, but most importantly she and Newt were safe and out of harms way. Nothing else could possibly go wrong - Hicks just had a feeling. This thought comforted him as he felt sleep take hold of him. Sleep – he was so tired, and he hadn’t slept for so many days. NO! He jolted back up. He had to stay awake until they got back to the Sulaco; he had to make sure everybody was OK. His head dropped but somebody caught it before it hit his shoulder. Hicks opened his undamaged eye slightly and saw Ripley, she had her hand on his cheek, it was warm and soft.

"Its OK Dwayne, you just rest, I’ll make sure everything is fine, just sleep." She whispered softly. Hicks felt himself smile slightly and then fell asleep where he was sitting.

A sudden jostle brought Hicks back around. The dropship had landed back on the Sulaco. He had slept, but was not sure for how long and he still felt like crap. He opened his eye and looked around, Ripley was unstrapping herself and Newt from their seats and Bishop was emerging from the cockpit. Bishop walked over to Hicks and offered out his hand, Hicks accepted and Bishop hoisted him back to his feet.

Bishop smiled as he put his hand on Hicks’ shoulder “Welcome back Corporal”
“How long was I asleep” Hicks asked as he began removing the bandage from his eye.
“Not long, just the duration of the trip back up, about an hour, there was some trouble clearing the planets gravitational pull. I’m surprised you didn’t wake up sooner, we went through some serious chop back there. I’m going to run a vehicle status scan to check for major hull ionization. I think it would be wise for you to do a quick recon of the immediate areas of the ship…” He glanced over to Ripley and Newt. “Just incase”. Hicks nodded in agreement and silently moved over to the weapons storage area. As he passed the equipment shelf he slung a motion sensor over his healthy shoulder. He picked up the closest pulse rifle from its rack, smacked in a magazine and was in the process of slinging it over his injured shoulder, when he noticed that there was something written on it. He flipped it over and it read ‘Till Death Do Us Part’, as he read it he chuckled quietly, but at the same time felt a pang of sorrow. Hudson, that stupid dick was always defacing the equipment, they all did - even Hicks. He closed his eyes as memories of his team, his only friends, came flooding back into his head.
He smashed his fist into the wall. They were dead, every single fucking one of them! And there was no one to blame except those big, cold-blooded fuckers!

Ripley appeared around the corner, Newt following close behind.
“Hicks, what’s wrong? What’s happened? Where are you going with the pulse rifle?” asked Ripley reaching out to touch him. Hicks – it annoyed him how quickly Ripley had reverted back to calling him Hicks after he had asked her to call him Dwayne back at the compound.
He brushed her hand away, avoiding her touch “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong Ellen. Just wait here till I get back, promise me you and Newt will stay here in the docking bay until I come and tell you its OK?”
Newt stepped forward “We promise. And Hicks?”
“Yes Newt?”
She put her hand on his sore fist from where he punched the wall “Promise you’ll be back soon, because we’re not going to leave you”
Hicks was taken aback, but he smiled and squeezed her little hand tightly
“I Promise”
He winked at the two new beacons of hope in his otherwise ruined life and walked out the door and down the dropship’s ramp.

His trained eyes scanned the area around the vast, eerie loading bay, nothing. His left eye stung like shit – but what kind of excuse was that? He headed towards the silent crew quarters. He was constantly vigilant for any signs of anything that was disturbed or out of the ordinary. He checked the motion sensor; it wasn’t picking anything up. He walked past the mess hall, catching a slight glimpse of the long metal table in the middle of the room, he thought he smelt the slight alluring odor of cooking meat – but it was just his imagination. He walked through a large door and arrived in the cryotube bay, as he walked he ran his hand over the tubes that he and his team had lay sleeping in only hours before. He stopped once again to take a breath and try to block the images of his friends as they were on this ship out and then them being carried off by the bugs or being consumed by fire or acid blood. The thought sent shivers down his spine. Hicks crept stealthily, like a panther, into the long, dark, empty hallway of the permanent crew residents.

He read the names on the doors even though he felt no need to, he already knew where everyone had slept, how could he not? One after the other he scanned through the quarters of his fallen comrades. Gorman – clear, Apone – clear, Wierzbowski – clear, Drake – clear, Vasquez – clear, he continued on his painful journey down the hallway and was approaching Dietrich’s room, when he heard a faint blipping on the motion sensor. He quickly pulled it up into his line of vision and saw two small dots inside. He felt his blood boil and he was overcome with rage – how dare those fuckers come onboard this ship, his home, the marines home! He kicked in the door, yelling at the top of his lungs and without even looking he let the pulse rifle rip, bullets rained down on the spot where the motion sensor had indicated movement. Hicks’ whole body reeled as he saw a small birdcage in the corner of the room. It contained two tiny, yellow canaries, one sitting petrified on its perch, its mate collapsed in a small heap of blood and feathers at the bottom of the cage. Hicks felt completely empty as he removed the tiny dead soul out of its cage and wrapped it in a tea towel from the rooms’ kitchenette.

He hadn’t known that Dietrich had these birds – now that he thought about it he realised that there was so much he hadn’t know about these people he called his friends - and he would never get a chance to find out, nobody would.
“I’m so sorry little fella - hey, sometimes we’re better off dead”
He turned to its female mate and in an attempt at reconciliation held it out a dish of water. It did not drink. He just stared at the poor defenseless bird as it tried to get as far away from his outstretched hand as possible.
“Till Death Do Us Part” he said quietly under his breath to the small figured rapped in the towel in his hand, as though he thought someone might hear him. Then he remembered, there wasn’t anyone in the quarters, just him. He closed the cage door and quickly searched the rest of the area, it was clear, if there was still life onboard, none of those hideous creatures were.

He was going to make sure that this bird was cared for properly until the end of its days, and he knew just the person to help him with that. He reslung his motion sensor and weapon and headed back to the loading bay, along with the canary. As he slowly and mournfully walked down the long corridor towards the docking bay he thought he could hear screaming and crying, but he knew deep down that it was just his brain recalling the horrific events of the night. He kept trudging forward. Then he heard it again, this time a more distinct cry - it was Newt calling for Ripley! They were in trouble! He ran as fast as he could, dropping everything except the bird in its cage as he went. By the time he reached the end of the corridor he was completely out of breath and what he saw made him drop even the bird and his legs gave way from exhaustion, stress and sleep deprivation.

There in front of him, right in the middle of the docking bay was Ripley strapped into the enormous cargo Power Loader, locked in fierce battle with the biggest fucking Alien he had ever seen. Its many armor plated legs and claws thrashed about and its mouth appendage swiveled this way and that trying to impale Ripley through the head. As she skillfully dodged its blows the light refracted off the alien’s massive black crown of armor. This was the big bitch Ripley had told him about. This was the Queen. There was nothing he could do to help Ripley now, she was taking care of herself. He had to find Newt and Bishop. His green eyes panned around the enormous room from the battling pair, to the piles of cargo crates and weapons canisters, to the heavy steel cranes and chains hanging from the ceiling, then up to the massive, 6 inch thick steel boom doors and then he spotted Bishop. He was split in two, the upper part of his torso lying helplessly at the foot of the dropships ramp, white android blood spilling out everywhere.

He ran to Bishops side, wiping blood from his friends eyes and mouth, taking up his hand and pressing gently but urgently one question: “Bishop, you have to tell me, where’s Newt?”
“Newt, Rebecca, she’s over there, hiding in the service duct” Bishop spluttered, trying his hardest to sound ok.
Hicks looked, and he could see about 50 meters away, two small hands holding the steel grate of the electrical service duct shut.

He started to scuttle on his hands and knees over towards Newt, but before he reached her, heard an enormous crash and Ripley scream. He had to help Ripley - but she would never forgive him if he let anything happened to Newt – he wouldn’t forgive himself. He crawled quickly to where Newt was hiding and pulled her out of the floor, he held her tightly in a fatherly type hug and just as he released her from his grasp Ripley opened the airlock and Newt flew out of his arms. She was well out of his reach now and screaming for Bishop’s help. Hicks wanted to run after her and save her but he needed to hold on or he too would be sucked out of the airlock. Amazingly as she sped past him, Bishop had managed to use his remaining energy to grab hold of Newts hand while keeping a firm grip on the grate he was collapsed on. Hicks tried to call out to them but the air was ripped right out of his lungs when he opened his mouth.

He turned to the airlock that Ripley had fallen into with the Alien Queen. They were both gone, and now he had to find some way of closing it off.
Suddenly a hand appeared out of the great sucking hole in the floor, followed by an arm, a torso and the rest of the body of Ripley, Ellen Ripley, she was amazing. She pulled herself out of the airlock and shut the doors. Air pressure was immediately returned to normal. Hicks got to his feet and as quickly as he could ran to the small window that looked into the endless abyss that is space. He looked out just in time to see the queen twitching and screaming as she was carried away, she turned her head to him opening her jaws and snapped her appendage menacingly in his direction as she fell into nothingness.
“Yeah, Fuck you too!”

He turned and ran back to Bishop, where both Ripley and Newt were crouched. Bishop was still and motionless, so innocent as he lay there on the cold blood-drenched floor. Ripley and Newt were both holding each other and as Hicks got to their sides he heard Newt questioning Ripley.
“But he’s not real, like a robot, doesn’t that mean they can fix him Ripley and he’ll get better again?” tears were streaming down her face.
“I don’t know Newt, I really don’t know”
Newt broke away from Ripley as she saw Hicks coming, she rushed up to him and held his legs as he stood, in shock.
“Hicks, Bishop’s not like us, he can’t die right? He’ll be coming back?”
Hicks crouched to her level
“I’m sorry, Hon, but I don’t know either, guess we’ll just have to wait and see”
She grabbed hold of him and started to weep, as the two held each other, Hicks felt Ripley’s arms wrap around the both of them and he too felt a tear roll down his cheek.

Several hours later when they had all washed and eaten and Bishops body was wrapped in plastic and safely stored in a spare cryotube, Hicks was gazing at the sadness in Newts eyes - when he remembered. He ran back to the place where he had left the tiny yellow canary and bought it back to Newt. He held it behind his back in its cage as he approached Newt.
“Newt, I found something in Dietrich’s quarters before when I was looking around the ship. I think she would have liked you to have it and I think you could do with a friend right now…” He pulled it out from behind him and passed it to her “It’s a little girl, like you”
A subtle and very well hidden smile came across Newts face. Her blue eyes twinkled.
“Thank you so much Hicks – she’s beautiful”

He sat there watching Newt talk to the bird and feed her some bread, that he had got for her from the mess hall, while listening to Ripley was prepping their cryotubes somewhere behind him. He was glad that he could help someone forget the horror, even if it’s just for a while. Ripley slipped into the seat next to him. Hicks didn’t remove his gaze from the young girl. Ripley put her hand on his,
“Dwayne, you’re smiling”

Hicks had insisted on doing one more last minute check of the accessible areas of the ship before they went into cryosleep. He had though that everything was clear after his first sweep – well look where that had got them. Bishop had been decimated and both Ripley and Newt had almost been sucked out of the airlock, he wasn’t going to take any more chances. This time everything was clear – he made absolutely sure of that.

He was ready to sleep now, they all were. But then he caught a sniff of himself, he smelt rank – there was one more thing to do. Hicks needed to change his clothes. He pulled his shorts off, rendering him naked for a second before he replaced them with a clean pair. He didn’t bother closing the door, Newt was over in the Tube room, and he wasn’t sure where Ripley was – not that it would bother him if she saw him – actually it would be quite… Then he had to stop himself, it wasn’t the time or place for those kind of thoughts. After a moment or two of trying to control his urges he then sat down on the bench as he unfolded a fresh shirt from his locker. He looked around momentarily, and then pulled the shirt over his head, blocking his line of sight for a split second. He pulled it down over his face and -
“Goddam it! -” Hicks yelled as he toppled backwards off the bench.
Newt was standing right in front of him, she had given him quite a shock. Then the thought hit Hicks – how long had she been watching him? Without even standing up Hicks quickly went to cover his pants.
“What’s wrong Hicks?” Newt asked innocently.
“Nothing hon you…um…you just gave me a fright, that’s all”
“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean too. But that’s not what I meant – I meant what’s wrong with your leg? Did you hurt it falling off the seat?” she pointed at the lump in his pants he was trying so desperately to cover up.
“No, I mean yeah, I hurt my leg” Hicks tried not to laugh. Newt offered out her hand to help him stand up.
“No, no it’s fine, just give me a second – my leg – erm still hurts” After a second or two of Hicks feeling a cross between extreme embarrassment and amusement, he felt that it was safe for him to get up again. He straightened his pants and pulled himself up onto the bench and lifted Newt to sit on his knee.
“What can I help you with then kid?” He asked hoping that Newt wouldn’t relay this experience to Ripley. Newt smiled shyly, but did not speak.
“It’s OK, Newt, what did you want to say” Hicks smiled, what could she want?
Newt spoke without lifting her gaze to meet Hicks’, “Well, to start off with I just wanted to thank you for the little bird – she’s very pretty”. Hicks laughed – was that all, he thought something had gone wrong again. “That’s perfectly alright sweety, like I said I’m sure Dietrich would have wanted you to take care of it” he fondly pushed his head up against hers.
“I was wondering, have you ever had a bird?” Newt asked suddenly
“No, I can’t say I have” Hicks drew his head back. He knew what she was doing, she was trying to make him name the bird. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do here – kids weren’t his game. Women, guns, war – yes, but kids? No way.
“Have you ever had any other pets then?” Newt continued
“No, sorry – I’m not exactly an animal kinda guy” He felt bad.
“Oh, well – if you ever had a pet bird – what would you call it?”
“I’m not sure” He was racking his brains for a suitable name for this bird… “ Your doll was very pretty, what was her name again – Casey – if my bird was a girl I think I might call her Casey?” He looked at the top of Newts head hopefully, not wanting to let her down again.
“My mummy named that doll Casey”. Oh crap! Bad move! Bad move Hicks.
“What about Dorothy?” Hicks blurted out off the top of his mind. Dorothy? What the hell kinda name was Dorothy? Frost used to date a girl called Dorothy he seemed to recall – but still, Dorothy?
“I think that’s a nice name” the kid said quietly - Hicks breathed a sigh of relief.
“Hicks?” Newt looked up to him
“Yeah?”
“Would you mind if I called that little birdy you gave me Dorothy?” she smiled hopefully
“No, actually I think that’s a great idea, Dorothy the canary – it suits her” he stifled a snort.
Newt smiled up at him, and for a second Hicks too forgot about all the horror that he had experienced that night.

After what seemed like hours of him just sitting there savoring the feeling he was experiencing, it all came flooding back into his head – the Aliens, his friends, the explosion – everything.
“Is that all you wanted then kid?” Hicks asked as he slipped her off his knee and back to the ground.
“No, I… um… I wanted to give you something” She held out her hand. Hicks held his out as well and she let the trinket drop onto his palm. It was a small silver charm on a long chain.
“it’s a Newt – just like me” she pointed out. Hicks looked closer, and indeed the charm was a tiny lizard. He didn’t know much about reptiles – but he was pretty sure that the charm wasn’t a Newt, but it was the idea that mattered. It still meant the world to him. He lifted her off her feet into a tight hug. No one had ever really done anything like this for him before.
“Thank you Newt – I don’t know what to say” he explained as he continued to hold her.
“You and Ripley saved me, there’s not much you really need to say. Plus you gave me Dorothy” Newt replied. Hicks didn’t want to let go of her, she was the closest thing to a daughter he would ever have and he knew that he would probably never see her, or Ripley, again when they got back to Gateway. Despite everything he was telling himself to do he released her from the hug. She smiled at him.
“I found it back in the air ducts at the colony before you came to get me, It gave me luck and helped me survive – I was thinking that maybe you needed some luck now too, now that – I mean now that you know… the other soldiers, Hudson and that are - ”
“Yeah kid – thanks, it means a lot” Hicks relised that Ripley must have explained to her that they would be split up one they got back to the Space Port.
“ You better get going now, Ripley’s probably starting to wonder where you are” he gently but firmly pushed her shoulder in the direction of the door. Newt turned back to face him and pulled him down to her level. She gave him a little peck on the cheek and started towards the door. Hicks thought he better get this out of the way before they got back to where Ripley could over hear them –
“Uh, Hon – before when you gave me a fright…”
Newt turned back around to face Hicks, “When you hurt your leg falling off the seat?”
“Yeah, then – How long had you been watching me?”
Newts face turned a little pink - “Not long” she said quickly and ran back to the Cryotube Bay where Ripley was waiting. And for the first time in many years Hicks could feel himself going red.

Hicks lay back and watched the lid of the Cryotube close down on top of him. For the second time in one night he could feel sleep slipping into him and start to take over, he was feeling very light headed. But this time it was OK to give in – he could sleep and in a couple of months they would get back to Gateway and he would get a chance to say his good byes… he didn’t want to say good bye… but if he had too he would prefer it to be somewhere he knew that they would be safe… yes good byes were very sad… sad… yes… very sad… sad good byes. He mustered the last of his strength and used it to look up over his shoulder. He could see Newt, she was wearing another of his spare shirts, and Ripley – she was walking around in nothing but a singlet and underpants – now that is something you want to see before going to sleep for six months… Ripley was an amazing woman… mmmm goodbye Ellen.