Alien: Breach

The Docking

They began to see the green lights in the distance; as the rescue ship drew closer. The light almost seemed blinding compared to the near complete darkness that surrounded them. Inside and out side of the ship.

"Is there really anywhere in the the Galaxy where you can't see stars?" Nervous as she said it.

"We aren't in a galaxy any more Ripley" bishop mention, he could see that wasn't what she was nervous about. Weather it was the curiosity of how long we had been drifting through space, the anxiety of boarding yet another ship to make her way home or even in fear that she may not be safe.

"We are in the parts of the universe that were never intended to be entered. That ship should never have been out this far."

"Neither should we" she said sarcastically.

The ship had turned from the two specs of light to a long cuboid with glowing green thrusters and spotlights that flashed on as it came nearer.

The radio fuzzed and tuned in to there frequency.

"We will be docking over on your stern, please prepare your hatch, over"

"What would a ship wanting to set up residential communities be doing millions of lightyears from the nearest planet?" She said. "Its one long journey to another galaxy. Unless we've been asleep so long they figured lightspeed travel." She said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice that bishop wasn't sure if she meant.

Riply turned and used the manual override leaver and began to loosen the hatch soon as the vibrations of a dock and the call came in.

The door, frozen over, began to leak water and covered the floor as the seeming hot air diffused into the escape pod. On the other side of it was a tall man, covered in facial hair. He didn't say anything, just gave off a huge grin.

Ripley and bishop were confused.

"Hey, there" he spoke, he looked down and saw the continuous flow of melted water flowing into his ship. Then the grin dropped. "Well you'd better get in here".

Ripley and bishop climbed through and locked the door. The ships were detached. Ripley may have been the only one who had thought it, but she was now certain there was no way anything but her and bishop were left after what was probably hundreds of years from running from those creatures. Bishop, however had his concerns. It had occurred to him a while back when they were preparing to leave the previous ship. That Ripley or newt might be contaminated, perhaps with a xenomorph, somewhere hidden in their chests during hyper sleep which have stayed in their developing stage until their host were woken. However Ripley had been fine for the last 15 minutes. And the thought drifted away from his synthetic mind.

"Well, I feel like we struck gold finding two people stranded out here, can't imagine how you guys feel" the man said " I'm Dexter by the way, this here is our rescue droid Ken. He hasn't been used before up until we got the call". Ken was not an android, but a small knee high box like droid with three arms, one appearing to be driving the ship.

"I'm Ripley, and this is bishop, he's a android, I'm not". Dexter seemed shocked for a second. But just turned back to driving and continued the conversation.

"How'd you get all the way out here then. Bit of a long way in a escape pod"

"We set the course to follow old shipping routs, however, depending on how long ago we set off they must have changed them and scrapped the old ones. Soon as we left any source of light we began to run out of power"

"Well if it helps, the year is the 4153 AD" Dexter spoke. He turned around to get a reaction from her. However she wasn't very stunned. Quite emotionless. Bishop appeared embarassed about befor, but ripley knew to well this was just his programming, to feel more realistic he faked emotion. This was something ripley could blank from her mind, she never trusyed an android scince the nostromo incident.

About  2000 years she had been asleep in that chamber, as newt drowned and they helplessly drifted away from all life as they new it.

She looked at him staring at her, trying to get the slightest bit of amusement from her distress. She changed the topic.

"So why is there a ship of 1000 people traveling into the darkest place in the universe in search of a planet". Dexter turned back to drive and began to smile again. He was a cheerful for a man whos spent his whole life in the darkness.

"It seems a bit of an impossible task don't you think?" She added.

"Well thats not quite what we are searching for ripley" he replied. "Thats just what the mission brief was released to the public to avoid controversy.  As you can well see, there is nothing out here. Its dark, there are no planets."

He stopped the story.

"So then what is the brief. What are you actually doing out here?" She asked

"Im not authorised to tell you just yet, ripley. You'll just have to wait until you meet the boss"

The ship was pulling up close to the mothership now. The ship was magnificent. It was covered with lights emmiting in all direction. Platforms sticking out with scafolding and apparently workers is spacesuits flying around outside. Ripley had no way of knowing what they were doing but there were alot of them.

"Who is the boss" Bishop stepped up and said.

"The commander, he's a friendly guy, more then happy to find two people astray out here. He cant wait to meet you"

"And what exactly is your status on this vessel?" Ripley asked

"Im the ships pilot, however the ship doesn't do alot of moving anymore so I kind of just hang around with those scientists you see on the platforms out here. In fact, this is the first time I've ever piloted a ship that wasn't just for practice. You see this vessel has been out here for centuries, which is why there are families living on here in order to bread the next generation of workers"

Ripley was intregued. "So this is a scientific expedition?" She questioned. Dexters steady grin dropped realising he had spoke a little too much. Something he often fell victim to.

The ship was comming in for landing. The small slot in the mothership was open and the rescue ship set down in front of it. As dexter flicked a few swithces it then began to draw him in, tractor beams and magnetics allowed a steady glide into the narrow slot which shut behind them. It was dark for a while until then came to a dockyard where a crane gripped the ship and placed them down in one of the empty spaces.

Bishop tapped ripley and pointed to the view from his side of the ship. Outside in the landing were ranks of scientists in contamintion suits and apparent droids. But most concerning which caught bishops attention was that they were not waiting for them. They were getting on another ship. One like there's.