Ocean of Stars: Where the Sun Sails [1]

XXIII

Aspen released her breath, quietly and slowly. The black Alien had left the room around five minutes earlier. She thought she should wait longer, but she had to get out, had to get to the others before they left. 

And Walter. He had to be alright.

Thinking of Walter made David appear in her mind, and Aspen gagged again, almost vomiting. Crawling out from under the stone counters, she spat on the clay, the taste of that liquid still in her mouth. Distant firing filled her ears, and the hum of an engine. 

She stood up from her hiding place, but fell to her knees again clutching her body, almost blacking out. Agonizing pain stretched across her abdomen, and when she pulled her hands away from her middle, they glistened with blood. Her eyes snapped to where she had wriggled out, and spotted the trail of blood. Rapidly unbuttoning her jacket and lifting her turtle neck she assessed the damage; When the Alien had hooked her with it's tail, it had torn through her clothes and tore the skin. From just looking at it, it didn't look to deep, or like it had hooked any organs, but it was bleeding profusely. 

She pressed her hands to the gash, applying pressure, Looking around, she didn't see anything that could substitute for a bandage. Thundering footsteps ran past the room and Aspen, fearing the worst, kept quiet. When the steps had faded, she took off her jacket and lifted her jersey. She wore a tight white under shirt, and it was soaked in blood. Tearing the shirt off, she pressed it to her injury. Pulling her turtle neck back on, she secured it in place with her jacket. 

Hunched over, she shuffled to the door. 

That's when it hit her; the hum was gone. 

It was silent again.

* * *

On the platform and now tethered to the deck, Daniels swayed from side to side as the craft rose. Holding the rifle helped her to keep her balance and stay upright. Cautiously, playing the safety cable out behind her, she moved toward the edge.

"Did you get it?" she called urgently over the comm. "Tennessee, talk to me!"

Wishing there were three of him, or just one with six hands, he fought to keep the unwieldy craft level as it rose. Crowded on all sides by the towers of the city, he knew that if they slammed into one on ascent, the lift was liable to overcompensate and go down in flames. It was designed to move cargo over an open area, not the crowded landscape of a metropolis.

At the same time as he struggled to control its rise, he tried to scan all the monitors at once. He saw Daniels, but there was no sign of the Alien.

"I don't know," he replied. "I can't see it!"

"I'll check the starboard side!"

* * *

Holding the business end of the rifle out in front of her, she moved slowly to the edge of the platform, leaned forward and peered over.

Face to face. Fright to horror.

Her finger contracting spasmodically on the rifle's trigger, she fired without thinking. The single shot went right into the Alien's skull. Letting out a screech, it drew back, seriously injured.

Pursuing without hesitation, she leaned out over the edge of the platform. Ignoring the ground that was receding beneath her, she hung there propped at a sharp angle as she continued to fire. The series of shots drove the creature back, away from her. If she could keep it up, she told herself, if she could just continue to drive it back, it would run out of room in which to retreat—or stumble into the incinerating flare from one of the engines.

* * *

Still battling to control the angle of ascent, Tennessee saw that he wasn't going to clear one of the towering, brooding Engineer statues. All he could do was fight the controls and shout a warning.