Sloan jolted awake. It was the smell that hit him first. A sickly, wet rot that assaulted his nostrils, shocking him into full alertness. His throat burned as he desperately gulped down a lungful of air, and then another, despite his conscious mind screaming in protest. He fought the urge to wretch, focusing on his breathing. Forcing himself to be more measured, lest the stench overwhelm him. Jesus, it was unbearable. A stomach-turning mixture of ammonia, metal, shit and rotting meat. He felt saturated by it. The way it clung to his skin and clothes. Hot and cloying. God, the heat. That only made it worse.

  There was the sound of dripping water and hissing steam. Thick dampness filled the air, and a warm trickle ran down the back of his shirt. He shifted uncomfortably, only to find he could not move. His limbs were locked in place, and his chest was constricted. The more he struggled the more it pulled tighter. He gritted his teeth and tried to yank his right arm free. Blinding pain shot through him, and he instinctively choked back a scream, gritting his teeth as he waited for the pain to subside. It was definitely broken.

  He forced himself to open his eyes, only to find they already were. It was just dark. He squinted, willing his eyes to adjust, and shapes began to form in the gloom. Wet, glistening patterns. Biomechanical, yet organic. Irregular, yet ordered. The walls almost seemed to pulse with a thick coat of greyish translucent resin that caked the walls, ceiling and floor. Every inch of metal was covered in the stuff. He looked down to see his own body had been cocooned in the same material, his boots high off the floor. He could move his head, at least. Steeling himself, he looked at his right arm, and instantly turned away. His forearm had been broken in order to set it in place, and it now sat at horrifically unnatural angle. The jagged edge of his shattered ulna protruding through the skin.

  He took a breath, pushing through the burning in his throat, and opened his eyes again. Then he saw it. A body. A man. It looked like one of the missing civvies. Plastered to the wall in the same resin-like material that held him. His face was contorted in agony, frozen mid-scream, with a huge, ragged crater where his chest used to be. Then he saw another. A woman he vaguely recognised. Then another, and another. All with the same tortured expression. All with the same shattered ribcage.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. His pulse quickened. Choking down a wave of panic as he realised where he was. He had heard the stories. What the xenomorphs did to people. The hosts. His breathing became quick and shallow. No. Think. He had to think. Had to focus. He had not been impregnated yet, or whatever the fuck they called it. Some kind of spider-like intermediate stage. He was no xenobiologist, but he knew that much, and he would remember an encounter with a giant fucking spider. He had time. He just had to find a way out of here…then he froze. At the feet of each of the dead hosts lay the spindly, desiccated carcass of a larval xenomorph. A “facehugger”. Splayed on the ground in front of him, its “fingers” curling upwards in a death pose, appendage hanging limply to one side, was a fresh one.

  Suddenly his throat felt even more raw. It wasn’t the air that was burning. It had been that thing. The thing that had forced itself down his oesophagus, laying the embryo that was now growing inside of him. He vomited before he could stop himself, and continued to dry heave long after his stomach was empty. Oh God, what had happened to them was now happening to him. Panic set in as he thrashed against his bindings, ignoring even the agonising pain of his broken arm.

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  No. Stay calm. Yau. That was it. The doc would know what to do. His knife. He just had to reach his knife. Cut himself free. Find Yau. He could do that. His fingers strained for the combat knife on his left hip, so close they almost brushed the hilt. But it was useless. He might as well have been encased in plastcrete.

  *

  A minute. An hour. He had no way of knowing. His broken arm had long since gone numb, and his whole body just felt cold. Despair had taken root deep in the pit of his stomach, along with a ravenousness like he had never felt. Two opposing forces threatening to tear him apart, and every attempt to focus on something, anything, was foiled by the constant drip, drip, drip of warm water down his back.

  He silently raged against the xenos. Against Yau. Against Weyland-Yutani. Against the whole damn lot of them, for fucking with things that should have stayed buried. Goddammit, it wasn’t supposed to go down like this. A few years at the ass-end of the galaxy, babysitting an off-the-books science project involving a handful of junkies and hookers and no questions asked, in exchange for the biggest paycheque of his life. Only an idiot would have turned it down, and now here he was, he thought bitterly.

  He felt it move.

  He froze. No, he hadn’t been awake that long. It couldn’t happen that quickly. It wasn’t time yet. He was just imagining things.

  It moved again.

  This time it was undeniable. A strange, queasy squirming deep within his chest, like fingers caressing his insides. The blood drained from his face, and a cold sweat broke out, defying the smothering humidity. He could feel pressure. Not pain. Not exactly. More like a coiled spring being wound tighter and tighter. He gritted his teeth as the tension became unbearable, the unrelenting winding threatening to snap something inside of him…

  Crack.

  He inhaled sharply. The impact taking his breath away. He felt like he had just been punched from the inside by a bare-knuckle boxer. He gasped for air as the waves pain subsided and he struggled to catch his breath.

  Crack.

  This time, he screamed. A piercing, high-pitched wail. Every fibre tensing, threatening to tear muscle from bone as the pounding in his chest went from a punch to a jackhammer.

  Crack. Crack. Crack.

  Blinding white flashes cut through every thought as his chest burned in indescribable agony. Ribs groaning as they were stretched to breaking point and beyond. He screamed again, tearing his throat as a spray of blood escaped through his teeth, and a dark red stain began to form on his shirt. The corpses around him looked on, their shrunken eye sockets and frozen expressions bearing mute witness.

  Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

  He let out a final, blood-curdling scream as his body jolted and sternum split with an audible snap. His chest erupting in a shower of blood and gore. The hive fell silent as his lungs collapsed. His ruined chest unable to draw breath. His limbs twitched in their death throes as the infant xenomorph emerged from its warm sanctuary. Slowly, almost hesitantly, taking in its surroundings before slipping out through the gaping hole and dropping to the floor. He watched, his consciousness fading, as the cat-sized creature slowly sloughed off its blood-soaked embryonic sac and, rising unsteadily to its feet. Taking a moment to orient itself before it slinked away into the darkness. Instinct driving it deeper into the hive.

  He hung there for a few more moments. His head hanging limply. Lifeless eyes staring down at his ragged, soaking shirt. His heart struggled weakly, vainly trying to pump what little blood he had left, before it finally fluttered and died.