Carefully backing away until she found herself up against the security shutter, Ripley could barely force herself to breathe as the creature followed. There was nowhere for her to run to or hide this time, and now it was stepping through the open door from the Server Hub to reception, when she remembered that she still had the make-shift flamethrower. So she fumbled around to get the weapon ready, and then pulled the trigger, releasing a stream of chemicals into the pilot light.

The result was an intense orange light filling the room as a wide cone of fire erupted toward the creature, making it shriek as its body was engulfed. As it had done in San Cristobal, the creature nearly fell over backwards in its effort to escape, and it had gotten all the way back to the open doorway, when the fire on its black, oily body went out. This left the creature literally smoldering as its gaze locked back onto her, and with an angry shriek it rushed in for the kill, stopped again by the flamethrower while Ripley let out her own terrified scream that was just as loud.

"Get me out of here!" She screamed into the radio as the creature retreated. "Waits, Ricardo, get me out of here, now!"

"Ripley, are you okay?!" Ricardo's voice replied. "What's going on in there?!"

"Damn it, Ripley, you have to calm down." Waits' voice interrupted. "This is all part of the plan."

"Fuck your plan!" She yelled, before driving the creature back again. "You locked me in here with this God damn thing, and now it's just... it's just...

This time when the creature was driven back, it didn't immediately come after her again. Instead, it just glared at her for a few seconds, and then it just... walked away. Letting out a growl that almost sounded irritated, the creature marched back into the Server Hub, and then it turned left, and that was when she lost sight of it. Well, once its tail vanished around the corner as well, that is.

"Ripley, are you still there?" Waits asked as she watched it go. "Ripley, what is your status? What happened with the creature?"

"I'm fine, Waits... like you care." Ripley replied with anger and fear in her voice. "The creature just... it just left; walked away into the Server Hub."

"Hold on, let me see if I can track it." Ricardo added. "Ah, there it is... it's moving toward the far end of the room, and I think it just entered one of that section's internal cooling ducts. The motion trackers aren't picking it up anymore, meaning that it's just sitting there, so if you're going to do something, now's the time."

"Okay, Ripley, here's the deal." Waits continued as she leaned to see more into the next room. "I can't let you out without that thing escaping, too, so you're going to have to lure it into the final cage, and to do that you're going to have to go through the Server Hub and into the next corridor. From there, you need to lure the creature to an area called Gemini Labs Module KG348; just follow the signs, and let me know when you get there."

Oh, it was that easy? She thought as she tried to keep the flamethrower ready with her trembling hands. Then he should have just said so in the first place, since there was no pressure or anything. It was highly doubtful that the Marshal was going to change his mind and risk letting the creature out in order to free her, so Ripley swallowed hard, and summoned all of her courage while moving toward the Server Hub.

As she reached the doorway, and peeked around to see if there was any sign of the creature, she realized that now she was even more scared than when it had been attacking. Yes, it had been horrifying to have to face it directly, but at least she had known where it was. Now it had apparently gone into the cooling ducts above the server towers, meaning that it could drop down out of any of them... at any time. So she went back to using the careful approach, trying to not make a sound as she began to creep past the server towers.

Although a few had been knocked over and were no longer functioning, most of the servers were still illuminated. This was nice since the lights allowed her to see while stepping over the cables and wires that ran along the floor, but at the same time allowed anything else in the room to see her more clearly. So far there was no sign of the creature, but then she stepped in something wet, causing her to look down and see a Working Joe lying on the floor. It wasn't moving, and the lower half of its body had been crushed by a fallen server tower, but that didn't stop it from suddenly grabbing Ripley by the ankle when she tried to pass by.

"I found you." It said in that horrible voice as she tripped. "Come with me, please."

Its grip tightened to a point where it felt like the Android was going to crush her ankle, and somehow she didn't think that the flamethrower would help very much this time, so she let it hang loosely on her shoulder, while she took out the maintenance jack. It was impossible to avoid making noise when she bashed it in the head, causing the Android to make some gurgling noises as white blood spewed from its mouth, but it just wouldn't let go. So she struck its head again, and again until the Working Joe finally collapsed; its eyes no longer glowing, and its grip loosened.

The doorway to the next corridor was only a short distance away, so she got to her hands and knees to get up, when the powerful grip returned to her ankle, this time making her cry out as it dragged her backwards. But this time it was not a Working Joe that she saw towering over her when she rolled onto her back, but the creature. The maintenance jack was already in her hands, so Ripley reacted by instinctively jamming the tool into the creature's opening mouth as far as she could, and then trying to get the flamethrower up while it was distracted.

It only took a couple seconds for the surprised creature to yank the long metal tool from its mouth, and it had just discarded the maintenance jack, causing a clang to echo through the room as Ripley pulled the trigger. She had to look away as the flames were disbursed between them, and the good news was that she had successfully driven the creature back once again. The bad news, however, was that while it was panicking, the creature's foot had stomped down onto her chest, knocking the wind out of her.

Regardless of how badly her ankle, and now her chest, was hurting, Ripley knew that the creature would soon make another attempt on her life, so she pulled herself to her feet, and scrambled into the corridor. The directory sign said that KG348 was to the right, so she continued to scramble, while continuously looking for any signs that the creature was still following her. It was, of course, and as she continued down the corridor, it matched her speed, while keeping well out of the flamethrower's range.

There were no other doors or junctions in this long corridor, and when she finally backed through the open doorway into the module, she noticed that the door was a lot heavier looking than the others. Obviously, this was because it was a pressure door, meant for being sealed when shuttles or other things were launched into space, and... oh, shit, was that Waits' plan? Was he going to trap the creature in there and then jettison the module into space?

The module had a circular layout, with a single corridor that looked like it went all the way around, with all of the labs clustered in the center. That meant that she could easily keep the creature following her all the way around, and then the Marshals could seal the pressure door once she was out. This was... actually a good plan, and it made Ripley feel a little less scared to know that it could be done.

"I'm inside the module." She reported, still backing away as the creature approached the entrance. "So, I just lead it around, and then you trap it, right?"

"Pretty much, but I need you to do one more thing." Waits' voice replied. "The lab was taken offline a few months ago to save power while Seegson tried to sell it, so there's no power. I need you to reset the main breaker in the middle of the labs, and then I'll give Ricardo the signal once you're clear."

The creature was just now entering the module, and Ripley broke the line of sight between them as she went around the circle, and she used that moment of cover to duck into the centralized labs. Staying low and quiet as she moved past the testing equipment and tables, she made her way through two rooms until she reached the central support column, where the breaker switch was located. The heavy lever required two hands to pull, but the creature hadn't seemed to discover her yet, so she let the flamethrower hang while she grabbed it.

The lever made a loud squeak as she pulled it down, and then there was a humming sound as the emergency lights went out, slowly replaced by the normal ceiling lights room by room. Now all she had to do was get out, so Ripley readied the flamethrower, and had just about made it out of the central labs without incident, when she stopped as the creature appeared in the doorway to the circular corridor. It had to duck down a little to come through, but another blast from the flamethrower made it rethink this choice. Thanks to this weapon, she would be able to easily keep it back while she escaped, but then she pulled the trigger again, and barely anything came out.

Again and again she pulled the trigger, but only a tiny burst of flame came out of the weapon, and now fear and panic were setting in as she realized that she was out of ammo. This meant that she no longer had a means to defend herself the next time it came after her, so if she was going to survive, then she had to get out of there right now. The creature was still reeling back from the last hit it had taken, and this gave her the chance to run for the pressure door, so she dropped the weapon and turned to do just that, when she glanced through the lab windows... and saw that the pressure door was closing.

"Attention: Hazardous materials detected." An automated voice announced as the door locked. "Initiating emergency jettison sequence."

"What?" She asked in disbelief. "No! No, I'm still in here! Waits!"

"I'm sorry, Ripley." The Marshal's voice replied. "But I can't risk it getting away."

Suddenly alarms started going off while spinning lights started activating everywhere, but worst of all, the creature was no longer burning. It shrieked at her, and had just started to rush forward, when there was a rumbling sound as the whole module literally tipped onto its side. Ripley crashed into a nearby wall, while the creature, still in the circular corridor, tumbled out of sight, but this was not what she was focused on at the moment. Because through the outside windows, she could see that not only had the module tipped over... but it was now slowly floating away from Sevastopol station.