Aliens: Consuming Equestria
Chapter 5

Even after the great Terraforming machine was annihilated on LV-426 in a gigantic ball of flame that consumed the facility, all was not quite on the barren surface. The ominous winds only strengthened their gales and the scraping choir of metal work continued singing.

The explosion had utterly obliterated the facility, but had not completed what the remaining human survivors had hoped it would achieve.

Somewhere, deep inside one of the many complicated complexes, a battered marine awoke with a gasp. His head swayed to the side slightly before he shook it vigorously in an attempt to regain lucidity. Slowly, his vision cleared and his surroundings were beginning to become slightly more obvious to him.

The marine could clearly feel his armour still tight around his body. The armour was made of a thick Kevlar layered with a light yet dense metal for extra protection without being incredibly heavy. It felt the equivalent of having three cats holding on to your clothes with their claws and a small kitten doing the same in random positions dotted around on your body. The marine also noted the strange disappearance of his helmet.

A hanging smell of puke could be clearly distinguished in the air, but the marine was fairly certain it was anything but puke. Despite having been knocked unconscious at some point in time and being slightly disorientated, he knew where he was.

The marine at first tried to sit up, but was pinned by a heavy weight, like a two ton truck holding his limbs back and only succeeded in straining himself. He soon became aware of a slimy yet tough substance covering his entire body, all apart from his head and appendages. His mind filled with horror as he remember the colonists cocooned to the wall; waiting to be hosts for the terrifying Xenomorph creatures that would inevitably burst gruesomely out of their chests.

Upon remembering this, the marine also realised that he wasn’t on the floor at all. He was on the wall.
A slimy flop suddenly came from in front of the marine. To his dismay, a slippery looking egg shaped object sat in front of him. And it just opened.

The marine didn’t have to guess twice about what was in that egg and he didn’t want to be cocooned like this when it emerged. He began to struggle ceaselessly in an attempt to free himself, but it seemed to be in vain. The marine continued to struggle fruitlessly whilst keeping an eye on the egg in front of him, but he was beginning to lose hope.

A loud explosion erupted somewhere nearby, likely caused by something full of pressure overheating due to the initial explosion or by excess electricity overloading a generator, and a large flame flooded the corridor. It was at this moment that the marine realised he was cocooned to a wall in a strange sort of concave. He was looking down at the floor rather than looking at the parallel wall. In fact, he was quite high up.

The flame raced towards the egg at full speed. The marine hoped that the flame would not fill the concave as it would soon shoot past and blaze the facehugger. Soon, as it flooded the corridor, the flame consumed the egg along with the ghastly creature that resided inside of it. All that was left was a scorched, fleshy object with a small spider-like creature, which also had more than a few burns, curled up dead next to it. Luckily, the flame raced right past the marine. He had survived thanks to coincidence. And he was grateful.

The marine decided that the only escape from this was to continue his struggle, since no other options had presented themselves, and sure enough, the infestation holding his right arm broke. He then ripped the infestation cocooning his left arm with his right before freeing his legs in a similar fashion. The marine forgot to consider his height, and so as soon as he was free, he plummeted downwards towards the cold, hard metal grating – legs first - which resulted in a loud thud, rattling of some loose grating and a stinging pain shooting up the marine’s legs.

The marine groaned as he struggled to lift himself up and fight the urge to stay on the surprisingly relaxing cold floor. Unfortunately, his rest was interrupted by menacing hissing coming from nearby. Realising that the noise he made must have attracted attention, he quickly stood up and began looking for a route of escape.

He was standing in a long metal corridor with a curve in its path - creating an arc shape if one looked at it from above – meaning he couldn’t see the whole corridor and that anything could be waiting for him down either way. The walls and floors were burnt, and the majority of the path was made of a metal grating that hung above a dark chasm that went a few metres down into the facility where the main generator was. Large parts of the grating were missing from the explosion and the tiny computer screens that opened the doors were sparking with electricity. The screens hung off of the walls and wires hung down from the ceiling like nooses at the gallows. Panels on the walls were missing and some were even covering the grating where they had been viciously ripped off by the explosion or by the dark, serpent-like aliens. There were many exits in the corridor, but his gut told him that these would only lead to the dreaded Xenomorphs.

The marine soon remembered that a large part of the facility down the corridor had exploded but a few moments ago. The explosion was a lot bigger than the explosion of something like a small computer exploding, so the marine assumed that the explosion would have killed anything living down there.

Not thinking twice, the marine sprinted down the corridor in the direction that the flames had come from.

The marine’s sprint only created more noise as he clattered down the corridors and hallways that were painted with scorch marks from the recent explosion and up exhausting stairwells. The ominous hissing only got closer with each passing second as he dashed through the facility. Soon, the marine began to find it hard to breath. He inhaled and exhaled raggedly and heavily, becoming exhausted by the surprising lack of air in the corridor and the large amounts of strenuous activity the marine had put himself through in the past few minutes.

As the marine turned the corner, he felt himself being tugged; he soon realised why. In the side of the facility, a wall had been obliterated by the explosion. A large hole also created by the explosion, created a gaping chasm in between the marine and the hole in the wall. A heavy vacuum was pulling the marine out of the facility. The marine could not stay on his feet and was pulled towards the wall. He quickly grabbed the gap on a doorframe of an open door and held on. His body turned sideways, with his legs facing the cavernous hole. Hissing soon became screeching as Xenomorphs flew past, not expecting the sudden tugging. Some flew off of the roof, others along the floor.

The marine drew his eyes away from the sight and back to his predicament. The vacuum was pulling too hard for the marine to stick around for too long. The marine pulled himself as hard as he could towards the open door. He had to get fully into the room before he could close the door. The struggle was getting too hard for the marine and he could feel his grip loosening. In an act of desperation, or a miracle, the marine pulled firmly one last time. He lifted up gratefully towards the door. He lifted his leg with great effort over the doorframe. He pulled his other leg over with it.

The marine felt relief as he reached the other side of the door (still sideways, only the other way round now), but, as he was about to press the lock option on the screen, he was horrified to find there was no screen. Panicking, he desperately tried to locate the screen anywhere using the wires leading from the empty hole where the screen used to be. It only led to the end of the wire. Thinking of no other solution, the marine checked the other side of the door.

A stronger force suddenly pulled on the marine and he almost flew head first out of the door towards the hole. He landing face first on the wall on the other side, but kept his grip. Having no time to worry about his bruised nose, he hoped to see a screen to close the door on the other side. There was a screen, and it was working.

The marine knew he would have to be fast; otherwise he would be crushed by the closing door. Without giving himself time to think about this choice of action, he quickly tapped the screen in the right place to close the door. He quickly grasped at the door frame and hauled himself up through the rapidly closing gap. He made it through just in time, only managing to very nearly clip the end of his right boot off as he flipped into the room head first. More importantly, there was no longer a fierce force pulling him into a vacuum.

The marine took time propped up against the wall – the right way up this time – to think about what could have caused the vacuum. He was thoroughly aware of the savage storms that raged on outside on the desolate landscape of LV-426, but he never remembered them being able to pull him into the atmosphere. The marine glanced out of a window a few feet away from him; just quick enough to catch sight of a Xenomorph lose its grip on the window frame and fly off into the distance. The marine stood up in shock at what he witnessed out of the corner of his eye. He cautiously moved towards the window to see what was creating the vicious vacuum. What he saw shook him to the core.

Everything, including heavier objects like gigantic metal tankers, was being flung about the facility. Some objects were flung into buildings, tearing chunks of metal out of the side of both the flying object and the building. It took the marine only two seconds to figure out what was happening. The scorched walls and floors; the exploded walls and facilities... the Terraformer had overloaded. The safe, stable atmosphere was gone, and now chaos was free to rule LV-426. The storms on LV-426 were harsher than ever, harsh enough to rip a smaller building off of its foundations and LV-426. With the facility now exposed to LV-426’s true atmosphere, tornados and hurricanes began tearing the facility apart from the outside. The destructive weather was creating a vacuum effect in the area, sucking everything in the nearby vicinity away and throwing them miles off.

The marine looked on in despair, knowing now that escape was impossible. He could only look on and remember his life before the glass or the wall was ripped asunder and he was flung into space: his home; his family.

No! The marine was not one to give up that easily. He would not just give up in the face of certain death, not today. He knew there had to be a way out of this. Even the stupid-ass colonists would have prepared for this situation right? The marine knew there was the development of something similar to the ‘gravity boots’ in old sci-fi comic books he had found way back as a kid, so if there were some of them in this facility, he could escape, right? There was bound to be some sort of oxygen masks and tanks somewhere, right? That was it!

The marine, suddenly full of confidence, picked himself up out of his dreary state and looked for a way out of the room. The room was full of empty boxes and punctured and dented gas tanks, like a storage room for broken toys, so the marine saw no use in staying here any longer. He spotted a vent in the corner of the room and immediately knew his route of escape. All he had to hope was that no Xenos bumped into him on the way out.

The marine quickly scoured the seemingly desolate room for a thin object of any kind. Finding none, he became slightly frustrated imagining that he would truly be stuck here. Then he remembered his dog tags. He slid the dog tags over his helmetless head and stuck them in the slot in the screws. He found he could do it after a bit of force was applied to get the dog tags into the slot, which also meant the dog tags were firmly secure in the slot and it was hard to slip with them. He then twisted the dog tags which undid the screw, allowing it to just fall out of the vent grill, before pulling the dog tags out. He did this with each individual screw so he could place the grill to the side without it getting in the way.

With the grill now removed, the marine pushed his head into the vent with his flashlight aimed forward into the empty tunnel of the abyss. Satisfied that the Xenos were not secretly laying in ambush in the vent, the marine wriggled into the vent head first and crawled onwards. To where? He didn’t quite know yet.

The marine crawled on his back, so he could see behind him if he became suspicious. The vent was tight and claustrophobic, only just big enough to fit him and all of his equipment inside. The metal was freezing cold on his skin and even frosted patches showed up even now and then, making the marines life even more of a living hell. A putrid smell of raw sewage lingered in the ventilation system, hinting to the marine that the ventilation was in fact not working. It also told him that he was heading straight for the sewers in the facility – not where he wanted to go at all. The marine had to find a way of navigating towards some sort of emergency storage room that might have emergency equipment in it, preferably oxygen tanks, oxygen masks and a piece of equipment that will save him from being carried by the storm’s heavy winds into the distance.

Without warning, the marine dropped down from the ventilation through a layer of grating. He landed with a thud on a concrete floor; causing his armour to slam and scrap as he fell and tried to stand up again. The marine rested one knee on the floor whilst he rested his arm on another, assessing any sort of damage. The fall was particularly short and he was on his back as he collided with the ground. The grating did not fall with him; it only opened on one side. The marine wouldn’t admit to anyone – if anyone else were around – but he was pretty sure that he had bruised a bone in his right arm on the way down.

The marine stood his full height - to show the nonexistent people around him that he was unharmed – and observed the room he had happened upon. The smell of rotten sewage was still evident, meaning that he was probably somewhere beneath the main complex. The marine, however, soon beamed with relief as his eyes fell upon a rack of colonist weaponry. His relief was turned to joy as he then saw several metal chests and racks of emergency equipment and several stacks of oxygen tanks. It took no time for the marine to leap into searching through the racks and chests.

After a few minutes of searching through the endless layers of equipment, the marine found several useful items amidst the unidentifiable objects the marine saw. He discovered a packet of flares, the flare-gun to go with them, a long-range radio with a headset, and a strange suit that stood straight and tall – like a monument to Zeus – on a wire mannequin; clearly designed to go over his entire body. The suit looked to be made of a very thick and heavy fabric coloured in a dark blue dye. There was a hard plastic window just big enough for his whole face to show; the plastic pane was an oblong shape clearly designed to fit the shape of one’s face. On the back of the suit was a rectangle fitting that had a thick tube running in between the two sides out of the back of the suit. The marine saw this to be the holster of the oxygen tank.

The marine, satisfied with the equipment despite having never used it, quickly grabbed one of the colonist rifles and fitted an oxygen tank to the back of the suit. The marine put the suit on and discovered some more features of the peculiar suit. The palms of the hands were very rubbery so the wearer of the suit could hold on to most objects whilst in harsher areas. The boots of the suit – which he wore with his boots still on – were also extremely heavy, probably so the wearer could stay on the ground rather than in the air. The marine tried to lift the boots, but no matter how hard he tried, the boots stayed firmly planted on the ground. The marine even tried to lift the boots from the outside of the suit, but to no avail. The marine soon realised that there was an Exoskeleton that fitted around one’s legs in the suit. He didn’t feel it before as it was loosely hanging on the edge of the suit. As the marine clamped the Exoskeleton around his legs by flicking a small switch near his thigh where there is usually a pocket in most trousers, he found he could lift the boot like it wasn’t there. He also found that the boots of the suit dug into the ground slightly when you took a step, making the boots harder to lift without the Exoskeleton.

The marine exited the suit which stood at least seven foot tall and put it into a compact bag (after some effort). He then inspected the gun. It had a very different design to the pulse rifle he was used to. The front of the butt was hollow and made of four thin plates of metal that lead from the gun to the back of the butt, which was made of a similar metal and was thankfully not hollow. The body of the gun was long and jagged in certain places either where the metal work was worn or where the gun was so narrow; certain pieces inside of the gun had to protrude slightly in order to fit. The barrel was standard, but it was slightly smaller than the pulse rifle’s barrel; this lead the marine to believe that it was a CQC gun and not a rifle as he had previously believed. Finally, the marine bagged a few spare magazines for the gun.

With equipment, a gun and, some ammo, the marine felt prepared to take on whatever was thrown at him. No more excuses.

The marine pushed the thankfully intact screen and stepped out of the room. The revolting smell suddenly amplified and he very nearly let his insides escape. It took one look to his right to see a lavatory with an unfortunate aftermath of the explosion to know where the smell was coming from. The marine took one look at the name of the room – ‘ARMORY AND STORAGE B2’ – and headed off to the left, avoiding the rotten mess covering the floor.

The marine changed his mind on his location and decided that he was actually quite high up in the facility after remembering that it would be unusual to find an armoury and storage room in the underground parts of the facility. Also, ‘B2’ would suggest that he was on the second floor of the facility, or that he was in section B2 of the facility.

A venomous hissing signalled danger near the marine. He halted his movement quickly to avoid creating much more noise. His actions were soon to be seen in vain as a group of Xenos crawled round a corner in the corridor. The marine turned to see another pack of Xenos approaching him from behind him. Trapped.

The marine had to come up with something fast. There was no way he could take on two sides of Xenos. The marine cursed himself for not properly running through his new rifles features: for all he knew there could be an under-slung flamethrower or motion sensor on the rifle – at least then he would know how many there were.

The marine knew that he could only take on one side of Xenos at a time, so he quickly chose a path to take and began unloading bullets into the Xenos in front of him. High pitched screeching drowned out the sound of semi-automatic firing as lead filled the bodies of acid-filled Xenos. Soon, the hiss of acid blood and surviving Xenos could be heard as the marine reloaded as fast as he could. In quick succession, the marine began unloading the new magazine into the horde whilst slowly advancing forward before unclipping it and slamming in a new one. The marine quickened his pace as the anxiety of the oncoming horde grew more and more overwhelming. As he stole a glance behind him, he nimbly dodged his anxiety’s attack as it swiped at his face. The marine quickly aimed in the general direction of his attacker, fired a quick spray, and turned his attention back to the horde in front of him.

Fire. Unclip. Slam. Fire.

Fire. Unclip. Slam. Fire

The marine was so engrossed in his repetitive cycle that he failed to notice the gaping hole in the grating in front of him. The marine lost one foot through the hole and the rest of him tumbled down with it. The confused Xenos above – startled by the sudden disappearance of their prey – immediately began climbing down the walls into the convenient room the marine had crashed into. The marine had fallen into a tiny, closet-like room with janitor equipment and a scorched power box.

The marine quickly rubbed his sore head and quickly clambered onto his feet and stumbled out of a significantly warped door before slamming it shut – unaware that he had left his gun behind until it was too late. The Xenos were already near to the ground and soon began to attack the door with their claws, heads and tails.

As the marine staggered out of the closet, he found himself in a vehicle bay. A long bay door took up an entire wall of the room. A small door on the other side of the room signalled the marine’s escape. He rushed over to it and pushed the screen, to which it replied: ‘CAUTION: Door Obstructed’. The marine growled audibly and kicked the wall viciously. He soon resorted to slamming his full force into the door itself. The slamming was coupled with the slamming on the other side of the room from the Xenos. The marine soon accepted that the door was not going to budge an inch. There was no escape.

The marine quickly noticed the three thick-plated buggy-looking ATVs - standing parallel to each other facing the closed bay door - right in front of him. The colonists didn’t have the more advanced equipment that the marines did and the marine was fairly confident that the ATVs would be pulled around or flipped in the huge storms. Huge surges of wind would be winding in between the facility’s buildings, and the wind would simply sweep across the open plains: anywhere the marine drove the ATV was a hazard.

The slamming at the door behind him reminded him of the imminent danger he had to escape from.

The marine knew that as soon as the Xenos came through the door, he was doomed. There was no other way out of the bay, and he didn’t even have the protective suit on yet, so walking outside was suicide. With little time and no other option, the marine took to one of the vehicles.

The marine ran to the side of the ATV and opened a metal door that led into the rather spacious cockpit of the vehicle. He hastily jumped in - causing the suspension to bounce heavily – threw his bags into the back and quickly tried to start the engine before realising he couldn’t: he didn’t have any keys for the vehicle. Panicking, he quickly ripped the casing off from underneath the wheel and began looking for the right wires. The marine had grown up in a fairly poor area and he had his past of hotwiring cars. Finally finding the right wires, the marine created a spark with them which made the ATV rumble. Despite the engine spluttering slightly, it seemed stable to drive.

The marine quickly hopped out of the open door of the ATV and rushed to the bay door switch. A loud clattering from the marine’s right halted him. The Xenos were through the door. The marine waited no longer to grab the switch box and push the open button so hard he nearly sent his finger through it. Satisfied with the low sound of the bay door opening, he charged back to the ATV; not even looking to see if the bay door had actually opened or where the Xenos were.

The marine dived back into the ATV and slammed the door shut. He put the vehicle into gear and slammed his foot down on the pedal. The bay door hadn’t even opened properly; the ATV smashed through the opening door, snapping it off of the raising mechanism completely. As soon as the marine took off into the harsh environment, he could feel the vehicle being smashed back and forth by the giant hurricane-like winds. Behind him, Xenos were being flung about in the air immediately. A few retreated back into the closet and up the wall just in time, but the rest were left to slam against the walls and floor wailing and screeching in terror and agony. The marine did not let off of the pedal however; soon the bottom of the vehicle was beginning to get battered and scraped.

After at least two minutes of ploughing forward, the marine eased down on the pedal until the vehicle came to a halt. The violent winds were still nearly taking the vehicle off of the ground. The marine looked down at the control panel and looked for anything that could steady the vehicle. He soon found two buttons: ‘Protective Wind Screens’ and ‘Steadying Legs’. He pressed the ‘Protective Wind Screens’ and flat metal screens came down on the sides of the ATV making it look more like a pyramid with wheels but without a tip. He then pressed the ‘Steadying Legs’ and metal poles emerged at the bottom of the vehicle and screwed themselves into the ground. Already, the wind was having less of an effect on the vehicle.

The marine stood up shakily and went to his bags and went to collect the suit. He slipped into it, making sure that there were no rips or openings in the suit, clipped the exoskeleton on his limbs and opened the door of the ATV. Immediately, a huge gust of wind blew into the vehicle and the bags of ammo flew out of the door. The marine felt the exoskeleton send the resilient screws into the metal floor of the ATV, making an inaudible whirring sound. He raised his foot to find the screws had lifted from the floor.

The marine sighed heavily calming himself before he stepped outside onto the surface of LV-426.
The storms thundered about him and attacked him, but the suit did not give in to the weather and kept strongly planted on the ground. The marine smiled at the suit gratefully. With nothing else to do, the marine simply walked onwards.

Unbeknownst to the marine, a ship had been following him since he hotwired the vehicle. It had been flying above the clouds, tracking him with the still barely stable link between the facilities network and the network on the ship. Now, it descended in front of the marine causing him to stop and nearly fall to his knees in awe and relief if not for the suit.

As the ship landed and Weyland Yutani scientists came rushing out in similar yet more advanced versions of his, the marine chuckled to himself.

“Hudson, you are still the ultimate badass!”

Author's Note

I may or may not update this soon as I need to choose which story I am going to write for the next month or so. I also have a ton more ideas, so they will keep nagging at my brain forever. Also, Rome II just came out this week and despite what others might say, I really like it and it works fine for me, so that will keep me occupied for ages too.