"Ripley, what happened?!" Ricardo's voice broke through. "You weren't supposed to jettison the module, yourself!"

"I didn't!" She yelled back, standing up on the wall that now served as the floor. "The sequence started as soon as I pulled the breaker switch!"

"Damn it, I had no choice." Waits explained as she fought to keep her balance. "But we did it, Ripley, it's off the station... I'm sorry it came to this, but you saved a lot of lives today."

The module tilted again so that it was upside down before she could reply, but instead of slamming into the ceiling, Ripley barely moved at all. In fact, she and everything else not bolted down was now floating in the air as they left the gravitational field of Sevastopol station, leaving her unable to control her direction, but she hoped, as she floated up toward the ceiling, that it would impair the creature as well. Of course, the thought of the creature still being after her caused the fear to return, since now without the flamethrower, she was even more helpless than she had been in San Cristobal.

"I don't wanna die in here, Ricardo!" She exclaimed, pushing off the ceiling so she was facing the floor. "Please, there has to be some way you can help me get out of this!"

"Hold on, I'm bringing up the module's schematics right now." His voice crackled through the radio. "Okay, the module is programmed to be self-sufficient, even when jettisoned, so the good news is that everything in there should still be working. Did the gravity field come online yet?"

Ripley was about to answer, but was interrupted as everything in the room, including herself, suddenly crashing back down toward the floor. She slammed onto the metal surface hard enough to make her cry out, but then she realized that the creature had most likely fallen back down as well, but hopefully all of the crashing equipment would mask the sound that she made.

"Yeah... its back on." She groaned while starting to get up. "Ricardo, the flamethrower's empty, and...

Her words stopped when the sound of crunching glass reached her ears, followed by more, and it didn't take long for her to realize what it was, especially since each one sounded a little bit closer. Looking around for a place to hide, and trying to listen over the sound of Ricardo's increasingly frantic requests for her status, Ripley spotted an open wall locker nearby. It was better than being caught out in the open, so she did her best to not make any noise as she moved toward it, and closed the door once she squeezed inside.

"I'm here, Ricardo." She whispered as the creature's head peeked around the corner. "The flamethrower's empty, and the creature's here... please help me."

As the creature walked into the room, Ripley noticed that it was not moving as gracefully as it had before. In fact, the creature now seemed to be limping; running one hand along the wall to steady itself while heavily favoring its right leg, as if it had been injured during the jettison sequence. Maybe this would allow her to outrun it if she made a break for... wherever she could go, but these thoughts were stopped as the creature stumbled, stopping itself from falling over by slamming its hand onto the holes that she was looking through. Putting her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, she shut her eyes tight, but couldn't stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks.

"I've got it, Ripley." Ricardo said excitedly. "You have to get to the emergency airlock at the far end of the module from where you came in, but you've got to get there before the module is sucked into the gas giant's atmosphere."

Finally working up the courage to open her eyes just as the creature limped away from the locker, she waited until it had moved onto the next room before daring to silently open the locker door. Trying to creep out as carefully as she could, Ripley was on her tip-toes, turning her head to see that the creature was still in the next room, facing away from her, when it felt like her heart stopped for a moment as her next step produced the crunch of broken glass. The creature immediately turned around, growling as they stared at each other, and then shrieking as it started after her.

Turning away and rushing out the door, Ripley sprinted down the circular corridor toward the far end of the module; not daring to look back even though the creature's limping footsteps were getting closer. The constant alarms and spinning lights only fueled the terror that she felt as she headed toward the door that had the words EMERGENCY AIRLOCK painted above it. But still the creature's steps got closer, frightening her so much that she dove through the door, landing hard, but then rolling over and kicking the large button on the wall.

The creature had been right on her heels, but hitting the button caused it to shriek angrily as the heavy door closed in its face, and Ripley could hear it banging on the other side while she tried to catch her breath.

"I'm in." She panted into the radio. "Ricardo, I'm inside the airlock... and the creature's trapped."

"That's excellent, Ripley!" His voice replied happily. "I'm so glad you're safe... now hurry up and get into a suit. You're only chance is to launch yourself back toward the station, and to do that you'll have to open the outer doors without depressurizing. But, Ripley, you'll have to do it while you're aimed at Sevastopol, or else you'll be sucked into the gas giant's gravity."

The creature was still banging on the inner door, which gave her the motivation that she needed in order to get back up, and open the locker which housed the EV suits. It was dangerous to use one without someone else there to check the systems, but then again, this entire plan was almost suicidal. So she got into one, and clicked the helmet into place, before walking over to the manual controls, and waiting for Ricardo's signal after telling him that she was ready.

The order to 'go, now!' came about ten seconds later, and Ripley found herself pushing the button without hesitation, causing her and all the trapped air within the airlock to be expelled at incredible speed. Now she was spinning, watching flashes of the station getting closer, while the module got farther away, and she felt an incredible sense of relief when the module finally vanished into the gas giant's atmosphere. She had done it... the creature was gone, and now she was on her way back to a creature-free Sevastopol... at high speeds... and without a way to stop.

Crying out in pain as she crashed into the surface of the station, she bounced off, flailing around desperately for something to grab onto. She found it, in the form of one of the station's many antennas, which allowed her to keep from floating off into space, but then Ripley heard a hissing sound. Looking up, she gasped with horror as she saw that air was escaping through a tiny crack that had formed in her helmet, and now she needed to find a way in before her oxygen ran out.

Thankfully, antennas like this required regular maintenance, which meant that there had to be a service airlock nearby. So using the antenna, so climbed back toward the wall, and searched until she saw it. The crack in her helmet was getting larger, allowing more air to escape as she moved toward the airlock, causing Ripley to cough while pulling down on the release lever. These gasps turned into desperate gasps as she dragged herself inside, and she was already starting to get tunnel vision when she hit the button to start the repressurizing sequence.

The outer door closed, and oxygen was pumped into the room as gravity reasserted itself, causing her helmet to finally shatter all the way when she hit the floor. This also allowed her to take that first gasping breath, since she might not have had the strength to remove the helmet on her own, and she coughed hoarsely while the sequence was completed.

"Hello?" She coughed while trying to get out of the suit. "Hello, can anyone hear me?"

"Ripley?" Waits' voice asked in disbelief. "Oh, my God, is that you?"

Under any other circumstances, she would not have wanted to ever hear that man's voice again, being that he was the one who used her as bait and left her to die, but right now it meant that she really had done it. She had defeated the creature and escaped certain death... which right now for some reason was less difficult than getting out of this God damn suit.

"Yes, you son of a bitch, it's me." She spat while kicking the suit off. "How could you do that to me, Waits, how?! You locked me in with that monster... you intentionally sent me to my death!"

"And it worked, Ripley, it God damned worked." The Marshal continued. "We got it; blasted that thing into the gas giant, the station is safe."

Coughing again as she got up to her hands and knees, it took Ripley a few seconds for her head to stop spinning enough for her to pull herself to her feet, using this airlock's suit locker. Her chest hurt from being stomped, as did her ankle from being grabbed, and pretty much her entire body for many, many other reasons, meaning that she was in no mood to listen to anything that he had to say.

"There's that." She replied, leaning on the suit locker. "And there's the fact that you're a heartless bastard... I'm heading back to the Bureau... we can discuss your methods there... Ripley out."

Still trying to catch her breath, Ripley exited the airlock, once again finding herself inside of a dark and silent corridor. There were a couple of emergency lights, some of which flickered on and off, leaving most of the area in total darkness, and now she didn't have the flamethrower to light the way... nor did she have the maintenance jack, which felt kind of weird after carrying it around for so long, and now all she had left was the access tuner. Of course, now that she was safe from the creature, there was one question that burned into her mind.

"Where in the hell am I?" She asked herself while looking around.