Just like that, he was gone. One second he had been standing there, and then just... gone; dragged up into an open service duct by... Ripley didn't know what the hell that thing was. For several seconds she just sat there against the boxes, terrified that whatever had taken Axel would come back for her if she made even the slightest noise to disrupt the silence that had retaken over the room. She wanted to run, or hide, or anything, but she was frozen... just sitting there like a terrified little girl who was afraid there was something in her closet.

Back then her mother would have told her that there were no such things as monsters, and that there was nothing in the dark, but this time there was, and it was this thought that finally allowed her to move. Deciding to risk it, Ripley slowly inched forward, keeping her eyes on the open service duct while reaching for the fallen maintenance jack. It hadn't done Axel much good, but it was better than nothing, and if that... whatever it was came back...

No, no more thinking about that. She wasn't some scared little girl, she was a professional... a God damn Engineer, and people were counting on her... she had a job to do, and she would never find out what happened to her mother if she just sat there waiting for some shadow monster to come back for her. So she got up, slowly and quietly now, and made her way toward the other door, her eyes never leaving the service duct even for a second until she was through, and hit the override switch to close and lock the door behind her.

Now that she was in a different room than whatever had taken Axel, the urge to curl up into a little ball and cry her eyes out was strong, but she had to keep moving. Now focus, damn it, Ripley, her mind scolded. Now, Axel said that Comms was in the Sys/Tech Spire, and from the way they were going, the transit elevator had to be somewhere in this general direction, so she started walking, finding herself looking around at the floor and ceiling nervously... and now gaining an eerie understanding of Axel's earlier behavior.

"Gotta keep moving." She said to herself. "Just... gotta keep moving."

There were painted directory signs every now and again, letting her know that she was going the right way, and so far she had not seen any more survivors, since given the last group, was probably a good thing. The corridors twisted and turned down the empty areas of Sevastopol for what seemed like forever, with Ripley clutching the maintenance jack tightly while jumping a little at even the slightest sound. But then it happened, she rounded a corner, and the door marked Transit Hub appeared in front of her.

"What the hell is wrong with this fucking thing?!" A female voice yelled from inside. "Work God damn it!"

"Will you just chill the hell out?" Another voice replied. "You know what, gimme that thing! Burke'll have all our asses if you break it."

The sound of those voices was enough to make Ripley stop in the doorway, and the mention of Burke, the one who had killed a man because he might have stolen a few supplies, was enough to make her slowly start backing out the way she came. But then there was a sound behind her, like something rapidly approaching, and she turned around just in time for a pair of hands to pull the maintenance jack away from her. It was Burke, along with some of the people, but before she could do anything, he swung the maintenance jack, slamming the hammer end right into her stomach.

The wind was knocked out of her even before the pain registered, but once it did, she bent forward, dropping to her knees, and reflexively wrapping her arms around her stomach as she fell over sideways. Finally Ripley was able to let out a labored and pain-filled gasp, but by then Burke snapped his fingers, making the others grab her and drag her into the Transit Hub when they entered. There was too much pain for her to understand the conversations going on; something about the main elevator in the back, and something not working right, but Ripley had bigger things to worry about.

Some of the others held her arms once they were at the main terminal desk for the hub, allowing her to see that there were about a dozen armed men and women in the room, and there must've been at least emergency power going, since about half of the lights were on. There were stairs on both sides of the room, leading to a second level, with exits on both floors, but there seemed to be something wrong with the main transit elevator. One of them was quietly talking to Burke before handing him a device that he clipped onto his belt, and then he walked up to Ripley.

"So, you and your boyfriend like to steal, do you?" Burke asked, coming closer. "You like to kill my boys just for fun, do you?"

She started to protest, to try and explain what happened, but then the others released her arms as Burke put the maintenance jack up to her throat long-ways, and shoved her backwards so that she was leaning over the control desk. He then pressed down on the tool, choking Ripley while giving some kind of speech to the others about thieves, and looking out for their own. No one tried to help her or even questioned what was going on, just allowing her to gasp and choke while Burke kept pushing the tool down on her throat. He was twice her size, so there was no way for her to overpower him, but still she tried, pushing and hitting him until her hand closed around the object on his belt.

Burke was still talking when Ripley took possession of the device, but his words stopped when she slammed it into the side of his head with all of her remaining strength. The others gasped and jumped a little as their leader stumbled sideways and fell over, but it gave her the time she needed to take in a gasping breath while scrambling to get away from them.

"What are you doing?!" Burke yelled as she rounded the desk. "Shoot the bitch!"

In an ideal situation, Ripley would've taken time to figure out which of the room's many exits best suited her needs, but once that first gunshot was heard, followed by a bullet ricocheting off the nearby wall, she just picked a direction and ran for it. A few more bullets bounced off the walls and floor around her, but then she ran through the first door she came to, taking a quick look back to see if she was being chased. The good news was that she had a huge lead on Burke's people, but the bad news was that looked ahead just in time for her foot to reach the stairs.

Reflexively grabbing for the handrail, but missing, Ripley cried out as she fell forward, tumbling down the stairs until she reached the first landing. Now adding dizziness on top of being scared for her life, she didn't want to waste the time to get up, in case they were right behind her, so she crawled across the landing, going down the next flight of stairs head first like a child. It was probably a good thing, too, since she had only just started downward when footsteps and voices were heard above her, and if not for staying down lower than the guardrail, they might have seen her.

"She went down there!" Burke's voice declared. "Come on, she's got my hack tool!"

"Down there?" Another voice asked. "No way, the lights are off... we don't need anyone else disappearing in the dark."

For a moment Ripley couldn't believe that they were willing to argue with him about doing into a dark room, yet they were perfectly fine with letting him strangle an innocent woman to death, but yet again, this gave her a better understanding of why Axel was the way he was. The people on this station were crazy... well, they had good reason, given the conditions, and the fact that something was lurking in the shadows, but didn't they realize that fighting amongst themselves just made everything worse?

Continuing to crawl down the stairs until she was completely out of sight of the top floor, Ripley got to her feet, and proceeded the rest of the way down. Like the other person said, this area was more poorly illuminated than the Transit Hub, but so much that she couldn't even see the directory signs on the walls. There were enough emergency lights to give her a shadowy outline of the way forward once she left the stairwell, but that was about it.

There was some kind of reception office off to the right, but without power there was no way to get in, so she continued on, careful not to trip over anything or make any extra noise that would alert anyone or anything to her presence. As her eyes started to adjust to the lack of light, this place started to look like some kind of archive or administrative area where personnel files were stored. There were several small offices, containing non-functioning security monitors, and maybe some sort of... employee lounge?

Well, whatever this place was, it had offered nothing so far that would help her deal with Burke and his people, since they were guarding the only path she could take in order to contact the Torrens. Still, there had to be something down there that she could use... wait a second, what was that? There was a light up ahead; coming from behind a mostly closed door that must've gotten stuck on its tracks. Thankfully Ripley was skinny enough to squeeze through the small opening, but it turned out that the light was only an emergency light that was shining down on a table with...

"Oh... my... God." She whispered in disbelief as she moved up to the table.

There, sitting on the table as if nothing special at all, was a large black box. And not just any black box, but an old Flight Data Recorder, and written on the side of it were the words: USCSS NOSTROMO 180286. Suddenly forgetting all about Burke, the shadow killer, and just about her entire situation as a whole, Ripley opened the lid, and entered her security code that had been given to her by the company for this mission.

This was it, she thought as she pressed the ENTER key. After fifteen long years, she was finally going to get to find out what happened to her mother, and then somehow everything would work out. But then the screen changed, and in a flash all of these hopes and dreams were crushed by the display of four simple words:

NO DATA.

FILES CORRUPTED.