Alien: Covenant - The Official Movie Novelization

XXV

Alone in her cabin, Daniels worked the private food prep gear to heat a meal. Usually the revived crew members ate in the communal dining area, but with the most precious thing on a colony ship being privacy, there were often times when some preferred to eat by themselves.

Usually Jacob did the food prep but…

She glanced over at an image that had been taken of the crew prior to departure from Earth orbit. They were all there, still alive in memory, their smiles and movements and expressions frozen in time. Oram and Karine, Tennessee and Faris, Lopé and Hallet, all of them. Her and Jacob. Memories. All she had now. Those, and a still-uncertain future. She was lucky, she knew. At least she had a future.

She didn’t feel lucky.

The door chimed, indicating a presence on the other side. Pausing the food prep, she opened the portal. Tennessee stood there, solid and imposing.

“Evening. You’re looking good, my darlin’.”

“What?” She made a face. “Oh, yeah,” she replied flatly. “Gorgeous. I was just doing my makeup and waiting for my ball gown to finish pressing.” She gestured. “Come in.”

It was a short distance back to the food prep. In any cabin on the Covenant, it was a short distance to anywhere. Personal space was more than adequate but hardly luxurious. A crew that spent the majority of its voyage in hypersleep was hardly in need of wide open spaces.

“What are you cooking?”

She picked up a box and showed it to him. The front was dominated by an image of an egg, with smaller images of subsidiary ingredients listed beneath it.

“An ‘omelet.’ Something derived from a simulacrum of unborn fowl.” She squinted at the container. “It doesn’t specify the origin species. You want one?”

“Sounds delicious. Sure. Actually, I’m familiar with it. Lots of cheese on mine, if you can make additions without spoiling your own.”

She looked uncertain. “What’s ‘cheese’?”

He turned thoughtful, remembering. “Congealed derivative of fluid excreted by bovine ungulates to nurture their young. Perfectly digestible by most—though not all—humans. Depends on your ancestry and genetic coding. In addition to being edible, it’s also tasty.” He indicated the container. “There’s probably a separate packet for it inside.”

She nodded. “Anything to drink with it?”

He rolled his eyes. “How long have you known me, Danny?”

Moving to a cabinet, she pulled out the nearly empty bottle of liquor and poured him a shot. He accepted it, raised it in a brief toast, not only to her, but to all their lost comrades, and sipped.

“How’s the ship looking?” she asked him.

“I took Mother offline. She needs to run a full internal diagnostic without the stress of having to monitor everything every nanosecond. She got pretty battered when we dropped down to the upper levels of the storm. Took a lot of peripheral EM damage. Ship’s systems are on auto until she’s back online at eight bells. It’s worthwhile anyway, to make sure everything’s independently functional before we go back under.”

A fatigued Daniels was having enough trouble keeping an eye on the food prep without having to pay attention to her visitor as well.

“Mother. Right.”

He noticed. “You need to get some sleep.”

She nodded in agreement. “Tell me something I don’t know. Soon as we eat.”

He watched while she monitored the food. “Do I have to call you Captain?”

She didn’t look up from the equipment. “Fuck yes.”

He smiled and she smiled back. Neither expression held for very long. Both of them were prisoners of memories too painful to forget, and too recent to expunge. When the food was ready they sat together and shared the meal. Each time one thought to say something, the look in the eyes of the other subdued it.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t have anything to say. It was just that neither of them could think of a tactful way to say it.

One dreamer.

Well, not quite. Sleep came fitfully to Daniels, if at all. Brief stretches of edgy unconsciousness interrupted by the urge to plan and prepare, occasionally speckled with shards of nightmare. She was so tired it was hard to fall asleep. Awareness of the contradiction did nothing to mitigate it.

Rolling over, she turned up the lights and drew fingertips gently down the slope of Jacob’s pillow. By now the last impression he had left in it was gone. Raising her gaze she let it linger on the image of his beloved log cabin. His dream. She would make it come true if she had to chop down exotic trees with her bare hands.

Somehow, envisioning the finished building softened what had otherwise become an uninviting tomorrow. At her whispered command the cabin darkened again, and she was finally able to fall asleep.

Time passed on the Covenant as it did on Earth, while outside the colony ship’s jump field the galaxy rotated around it. It continued in this peaceful fashion until eight A.M., ship time, at which point Mother came back online. Low-pitched and slow-voiced at first, but rapidly returning to normality.

“Central computer systems restored. Ship diagnostics completed. First post-diagnostic report compiling. Stand by.” This was followed by a pause. Neither the initial announcement nor the subsequent delay woke Daniels.

When next it spoke, she woke from her sleep immediately.

“Attention! Captain Daniels! Urgent! Please report to the medbay. Urgent! Please report to the medbay!”

“What?” Lifting her head, she glanced at the time readout and rubbed at her eyes. “Why?”

“Sergeant Lopé is dead. There is an unidentified life-form on the ship.”

Within seconds she was up, out of the bed, and slipping into uniform. The corridor outside her cabin was empty, as was the one she subsequently turned into. Rounding a corner and running full out into a third accessway, she nearly ran over Tennessee.

“Medbay,” she snapped. There was neither time nor need for further explanation. He just nodded his understanding. His expression was bleak.

“Mother woke me, too.”

Together they raced up a third corridor, slowing only as they approached their destination. The entrance stood open. Eschewing the gaping, welcoming portal they advanced cautiously to peer through the observation window.

The interior of the medbay was no longer a sterile white. Blood and viscera were splattered everywhere. All had belonged to the unfortunate Lopé, who lay on his back in the med pod with his torso blown open. Nutrient tubes still ran into his face and body. With luck, an appalled Daniels thought, he had still been in the induced coma when his chest had exploded. Turning away in revulsion, she addressed her suit comm.

“Walter!”

“I heard,” his voice replied. “I am on my way to check on you.”

“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m with Tennessee. Location of unidentified life-form! Any sign of movement?”

There was a pause, then, “Stand by, I have something. Yes, B deck between hex three and four, heading for general crew quarters.”

“Who’s down there?”

“Ricks and Upworth.”

“Shit! Get them out of there! Sound general alarm five—tell them to lock themselves in their cabin until we can get down to them.”

“Will do.” A pause. “Do you want me to join you?”

She thought a moment. “No. I need you to track the thing. Tennessee and I are heading for the armory.”

Designed to accommodate several of the crew at once, the communal shower room was spacious and empty save for two figures. Recycled water beat down on the entwined, naked pair. Filling the room with steam from sourced hot water was a luxury—one of the few available to revived personnel.

Husband and wife enjoyed the privacy, reveled in the intimacy. There was no need for them on the bridge now. Daniels was back, Tennessee had everything in hand, and Mother was once again in charge.

Emergency lighting was everywhere on the ship. Abruptly sealed beacons began to blaze redly, crimson flashes only slightly diluted by the drifting steam. At the same time, a klaxon blared, its insistent wail echoing off the interior of the shower area. Bemused, Ricks pulled back slightly from his spouse.

“I wonder what’s going on?”

She looked around uncertainly. “Post-diagnostic test of the emergency warning system, maybe?”

He frowned. “Probably, but we’d better respond. In a minute.” He favored her with a last, extended kiss. He did not see the shadow behind him. Nor did she, with her eyes closed as they embraced.

It was huge and wet and the flashing red lights glistened off the massive curved skull. Leaning toward him, it nearly touched the back of his neck as the dreadful mouth yawned.

The inner mouth struck, spearing into the back of his spinal column. Metalized teeth tore through flesh, bone, and sinew to pass all the way through his head, emerging from his open mouth. Eyes wide in shock, he stood there for a moment in the steam and falling water, impaled through the skull.

Then the inner jaws withdrew, and he fell.

Blinded by blood, water, and her own wet hair, Upworth recoiled in shock. Wiping frantically at all of it, she finally cleared her vision enough to see the face staring back at her. It was not that of her husband.

She screamed.

Weapons at the ready, Tennessee and Daniels slowed as they approached the shower room. The only sound came from water spattering on the floor, while steam emerging from the open doorway provided the only movement. When they saw the water seeping out of the room and into the corridor, it showed dark streaks.

Inside was worse than any abattoir. Blood ran everywhere, dripping slowly off walls not struck by the showers’ cleansing spray. No corner of the room was without its quota of dismembered body parts. Viscera clogged drains, causing the mix of water and blood to pool. That explained the overflow out into the corridor.

Picking his way through the carnage, Tennessee shut down the multiple nozzles as Daniels surveyed the butchery. Rage suffused her expression. She had left her fear behind on the world of the Engineers.

“Where is it? Walter!”

Ensconced at his station on the bridge, the synthetic peered anxiously into a holo of the Covenant’s interior. Moving faster than any human hands, his fingers played over the instrumentation, shrinking one section of the vessel while magnifying another. Daniels and Tennessee he had already located. Now he was searching for the intrusion—with no luck.

“Lost it. Had it once, in the shower, but it’s moving fast. Hard to maintain a fix once I’ve got it.”

“Keep on it.”

She turned to Tennessee. “What do you do with an opponent that’s faster than you, stronger than you, and damned hard to bring down?”

He looked over at her. “Call for backup?”

She almost—but not quite—smiled. “Too many light years to cross to get here. If we try to track it, it’ll come up behind us. If we’re in an open space, we’ll have no cover. If we follow it down a corridor, it can come at us through the vents. Or for all we know, from under the floor. Let’s choose our ground. Instead of waiting to be victimized, we’ll bring it to us.”

“Makes sense,” he agreed. “But where?”

“My home turf. My area of expertise.” She addressed her pickup. “Walter, anything?”

“I see it, heading aft on B deck.”

“That’ll work,” she told him with dour satisfaction. “We’re heading for terraforming bay. Seal all doors except those leading to it.”

“Complying,” the synthetic told her.

As he tracked the Alien he shut the relevant doors behind it, while opening the appropriate ones in front of it, easing the creature toward the sector Daniels had specified. The identifying image of the creature within the holo responded at every door, pausing before each open portal before charging through.

It ignored those that slammed shut behind it. All the while, Walter utilized the system to herd it toward the terraforming bay. Daniels and Tennessee were not as fast as the intruder, but they kept up a steady pace as human and Alien trails began to converge.

“You still on it, Walter?”

“I still have it, yes,” the synthetic replied. “It is moving in the direction you wished.”

“Right. Open hatch to level C and corridors five and six.”

“Hatch open.” Walter’s synthetic gaze was fixed on the tiny images moving across the enhanced section of holo. “It’s passing through. Opening corridors five and six.”

“Delay it on deck C hex six.”

Walter waited. For a terrible moment it appeared as if this time the creature would fail to take the bait. Then its image resumed moving forward.

“Done. All doors closed.” Even for him, it was an effort to isolate and track a single, fast-moving figure in the vastness of the ship. “Lost it again.”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “Image detection probably blocked by the heavy equipment. What matters is that we know where it is, and that it can’t get out—except through us. We’re at Seventeen. Entering the bay… now.”

Standing beside the entryway, she activated the controls set into the wall. The barrier slid aside to reveal a dark, yawning chamber, one of the largest open spaces on the Covenant.

Huge excavators, cranes, carry trucks, mineral processors, portable conveyors, personnel transports, and lifters squatted among dozens of smaller machines, like so many dinosaurs among tentative mammals. All were clad in shining coats of protectant and preservative. Mobile scaffolding and other temporary structures allowed Daniels and other crew access to the upper reaches of the larger equipment.

Upon reaching Origae-6, cargo lifts would transfer the terraforming machinery to the surface. It would be Daniels’ responsibility to ensure that each and every piece of equipment was in working order and ready to go before it left the Covenant. Deployment would be via the main terraforming bay airlock at the far end of the chamber.

Along with other gear, a row of lockers just inside the crew accessway held neatly racked EVA suits. While Tennessee covered Daniels, she quickly climbed into one. They then switched positions while he did the same. Thus suited up, they performed hasty checks on each other to ensure both suits were fully operational and pressurized.

“My air’s good,” he told her. “You?”

She nodded back. “Comm is good.” Turning, she faced the dark, equipment-filled storage area that spread out before them. “Don’t shoot if you can avoid it. Its blood is acidic, and will eat through the deck. If it’s carborane-based, maybe all the way through the hull.”

He nodded his understanding. “You don’t have to tell me. I saw what it did to the end of the crane on the cargo lifter.” He raised his voice slightly. “You got eyes on it again, Walter?”

On the bridge, the synthetic’s attention was fixed on one monitor. “It is holding in position at door forty-seven. It seems to be… resting.”

Squatting in a corner, its arms held out in front of it and tail tucked around its legs, the creature appeared to be waiting. Walter prepared to offer it some stimulation. Running a hand over a control, he watched as one of the access doorways opened, leading into the terraforming bay. The instant the portal began to open, the Alien looked up.

But it did not move.

“Come on. Come on,” the synthetic murmured.

It seemed an eternity before the creature finally rose and advanced to explore the new aperture. The great head swung around to scan every corner before finally pausing to gaze at the video pickup. Halting, it peered into the small circular sensor. Inclining forward, the blunt head drew closer, until it was all that was visible.

On the bridge a fascinated Walter did likewise, bending so that his face was closer and closer to the monitor that showed the creature. For a frozen moment they remained like that, Alien and synthetic, their respective visages seemingly only a hand’s breadth apart.

Exploding like a gunshot, the inner mouth shattered the video pickup. A startled Walter pulled back, shocked by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the assault. The pickup image that had temporarily held him spellbound went dark. Collecting himself, he switched to different instrumentation as Daniels’ voice echoed over the bridge speakers. For a change it was she, and not he, who was the one entirely under control.

“In position. Open the door to the terraforming equipment storage bay.”

“Understood.”

Mouth set, she hefted the F90 Tennessee had chosen for her, confident in the weight of it.

“Let’s kill this fucker.”

The door through which the Alien had entered the outer airlock now closed behind it while the inner one opened. With only one way to go, the creature exited the chamber where it had been resting, moving more cautiously than usual.

Advancing from the other end, Daniels and Tennessee saw it immediately. If it saw them, it gave no sign. Instead, it scurried off in another direction, disappearing into the darkness. Raising their weapons they continued inward, side by side, Tennessee shortening his stride to match Daniels’.

Offering a nod, she continued onward while Tennessee took up a position behind several metal containers and beside one of the bay’s several control consoles. Resting his arms on top of the containers would allow him to better track Daniels’ progress with his rifle, as well as help to steady his aim. While she moved forward, deeper into the densely packed bay, he began tethering himself to the deck.

Stopping by the access ladder attached to the side of a massive terraforming vehicle, she glanced upward. Allowing for periodic maintenance access, the door to the cab hung open. So too, she knew, would its counterpart on the other side of the vehicle. Lowering her gaze, she peered into the depths of the cargo bay.

A moment passed before the Alien showed itself again. It was peering down into a mobile crawler. It would have been interesting, she mused, to know if it understood what it was looking at and if so, to what degree. Interesting, but right now she had other priorities.

Positioning herself as close to the ladder as possible, she lowered her voice as she spoke into her suit’s pickup. It wasn’t necessary to whisper since her words could not be heard outside the sealed suit, but the situation itself seemed to compel discretion.

For the same reason, she couldn’t yell at the Alien to attract its attention. Substituting action for words, she banged the butt of her rifle several times against the ladder. Her suit’s external pickup assured her that the resulting noise was gratifyingly loud.

The Alien reacted immediately. Despite having noted its capabilities all too closely before, during the fight on the cargo lift, she was still stunned by the speed and agility it displayed in launching itself toward her.

If she had miscalculated…

There was no time to wonder. Mere seconds stood between her and a violent end. Shouldering her rifle and starting up the ladder at the same time, she raced to reach the open control cab. Though she had allowed additional time because of the bulky suit she wore, it slowed her down more than she had anticipated. Fighting for each step, she failed to avoid several slender maintenance cables that were difficult to see in the dim light.

Momentarily entangled, she was breathing faster and faster as she fought to free herself.

On the deck, an anxious Tennessee saw her quandary and raised his rifle. He was going to have to risk spraying acidic blood, unless…

Slipping free of the last restraining line, she dove into the vehicle. The creature was right behind her. The terrible jaws flashed in the weak illumination, ready to strike. Scrambling through the wide cab, just ahead of the Alien, she hit a control as she threw herself out the open far door.

Behind her—and behind the Alien—the portside door closed with a bang. As she rolled and fell, she flailed frantically at the external controls of the starboard-side door. It slammed shut half a second before the creature could get an arm in the opening.

Tumbling, she fell to the deck, hitting it hard. Had she not been encased in the protective EVA suit she might easily have broken bones. As it was, she was only momentarily stunned. Staggering erect, she quickly began tethering herself to the deck.

Above, in a reprise of what it had attempted on board the cargo lift, the enraged Alien began using its head to hammer at the door’s window.

Because it was intended for work on a planetary surface, the vehicle’s components, while tough, were made of less robust materials than those that had been used in the lift. As a result, under the relentless assault, the window began to crack.

Looking up, she made a last check of her tethers.

“Tennessee, now, now!” she bellowed.

He hit the controls. A series of small explosions reverberated throughout the bay as emergency release charges blew the stays on the chains and clamps that held the truck in place. Having nearly smashed its way through the side window, the furious Alien was just a solid blow or two from freeing itself from the truck cab.

Standing below, solidly fastened to the deck, Daniels raised her weapon and prepared to fire, despite the possibility of receiving an acid shower as a result.

“Mother,” she said. “Open main terraforming bay doors.”

“I’m sorry,” the ship’s computer replied with a maddening lack of urgency. “That will result in immediate depressurization of the…”

Daniels didn’t wait for the rest.

“Command override Daniels nine-zero-two-six-five, code ‘sea.’ Execute now!”

For the briefest of instants she was afraid the computer was going to argue with her. Relief came as the huge portal at the far end of the bay began to open, the massive doors sliding apart as an unloading ramp was simultaneously deployed.

Chamber depressurization was sudden and incredibly violent. As clean as the storage area had been kept since departure from Earth orbit, there was still enough unseen detritus in the bay for depressurization to suck up a momentary blizzard of particulates. The storm was intense, sweeping over, around, and past her as every bit of dust and debris was vacuumed into space, wrenching her rifle out of her hands, as well.

Vehicles and equipment of all shapes and sizes pulled at their restraints in furious attempts to obey the laws of physics and follow the remnant atmosphere out the now open front door. Only one item managed to do so.

The skids on the truck exploded as it shot forward. Displaying inhuman strength, the single occupant of the vehicle’s cab thrashed wildly in its attempt to escape as the huge piece of heavy machinery sped toward the starfield now fully revealed at the far end of the chamber.

Released from the deck, restraint chains flailed at the escaping air and the floor, trailing the truck like braids of hair on a fleeing giant. Several of them wrapped around a bladed excavator. As the weight of the much larger truck wrenched the smaller machine loose from its own tie-downs, the latter was dragged along toward the now gaping portal.

Until it jammed against an emergency braking block, jerking both it and the bigger truck to a stop.

Sitting just at the edge of the ramp, the larger vehicle showed no sign of motion—until a silent splintering signaled the Alien’s emergence from the cab. Clambering out, it scrambled onto the top of the machine. With single-minded purpose it headed back along the top of the truck toward the storage bay—straight toward where Daniels was secured to the deck.

The storm of escaping air continued unabated as the ship struggled to continuously renew what had escaped. Rising and fighting against the winds, she fumbled clumsily with the restraints that now held her helplessly in place.

With no time for subtlety, Tennessee yanked a tool from its bracket and slammed it down on a line of emergency release controls, setting all of them off simultaneously. Thus freed, a number of braking blocks went flying down the bay as if shot from catapults. Atop the dangling truck, the Alien dodged them all.

But the released blocks included the one that had stalled the departure of the excavator. Finally freed from any restraint, the gargantuan vehicle went flying out into space even as the creature leaped from the back of it, and onto the ramp.

It headed for Daniels. Nothing would deter it now.

At the opposite end of the bay, Tennessee started to reach for the rifle he had clipped onto the control console, stopped, and yelled into his pickup.

“Danny! Down!”

Whirling, she saw a mass of metal flying in her direction. It was the now equally unrestrained excavator, its polished alloy blades pointed straight at her. Letting go of the tether release she dove to the deck. Despite being sealed inside her suit she could have sworn she heard the rush of air as the heavy vehicle shot past close overhead.

The extended blades slammed into the creature, skewering it all the way through its biomechanical body. Spinning and turning, the two vehicles and the impaled Alien went tumbling off into empty space.

Moments later Tennessee ordered the ship’s computer to shut down the flow of atmosphere to the wide-open terraforming bay. The artificial hurricane that had been blasting around Daniels rapidly subsided. In the silent, depressurized chamber she played out the tether behind her as she made her way to the edge of the deployment ramp. Growing smaller and smaller with every minute, the two vehicles and the impaled Alien spiraled off into emptiness.

As it continued fighting to try and free itself, its leaking blood began to dissolve the blades that pierced the tough body—but not fast enough. Then, unexpectedly, two new objects made their appearance in the distance. It took her a second to recognize them.

She started to laugh. Responding to ejection from the storage bay, both vehicles had deployed their emergency landing chutes. With no air to push against them they hung aimlessly in space, like a pair of lady’s handkerchiefs drooping on a hot, humid afternoon.

“You all right, Danny?” The concern in Tennessee’s voice was palpable. “Are we all right?”

It took another moment before vehicles, chutes, and Alien disappeared completely from sight. Rolling over on the deck, thankful for the ship’s artificial gravity, she took a deep breath. Then she raised herself partway into a sitting position and thrust a thumb upward, smiling.

It was over.