Red alert klaxons wailed throughout the captured bridge, bathing the cold steel consoles in a rhythmic, bloody crimson glow. Hicks hammered his fists against the primary terminal, his face slick with sweat and grease. "It's locked down tight," he yelled over the screaming sirens. "The mainframe is completely unresponsive to manual overrides. Corporate has a hard lock on the self-destruct from an external relay." Vance sat bound to a heavy metal chair in the corner, a bloody sneer plastered across his face. "You're already dead, Colonial Marine," Vance mocked, his voice dripping with venomous satisfaction. "Weyland-Yutani doesn't leave loose ends. That countdown is hardwired directly into the ship's central AI core. You can't hack it. You can't bypass it. In exactly four minutes, we all turn into space dust." Amelia stood tall in the center of the chaotic room, her majestic eight-foot frame casting a massive shadow across the deck plating. Her sleek, obsidian-skinned body glistened under the emergency lights, completely unbothered by the rising panic. Blue eyes, sharp and calculatingly human, narrowed as she looked at the main viewscreen displaying the digital timer ticking downward. 03:42. 03:41. "We don't need to hack it," Amelia said, her voice a calm, smooth contrast to the frantic alarms. "What do you mean we don't need to hack it?" Hicks demanded, wiping sweat from his brow. "Amelia, if that timer hits zero, the reactor goes critical. There won't be enough of us left to bury." Deep within the bowels of the vessel, Amelia felt the stirrings of her newly born children. Three chestbursters had recently finished chewing their way out of the dead Weyland-Yutani boarders. Unlike standard Xenomorphs, their development was accelerated by the latent psychic energies radiating from Amelia. They didn't just grow; they adapted. Now, they were fully formed drones, slick with black slime, waiting for their mother's command. Their carapaces were a deep, obsidian black that absorbed the flickering red emergency lights of the corridor. Their elongated heads were smooth and polished, and their claws twitched with lethal anticipation. They moved with a predatory grace that mirrored her own, perfectly attuned to her mental frequency. Closing her eyes, Amelia projected her mind down through the ship's metal veins. She connected with the three newborn predators instantly, her consciousness wrapping around their instinctual hunger. *Hear me,* she commanded silently. *The heart of this vessel must stop. Find the primary AI core. Tear it open. Melt the processing arrays.* Responding to her mental voice, the three drones hissed in unison, their elongated skulls turning toward the ceiling vents. They scrambled into the ventilation shafts with terrifying speed, their metallic claws clicking against the steel grates. Amelia guided them, using her innate understanding of the ship's layout, steering them past the secured blast doors that blocked the human crew. On the bridge, Vance watched her quiet posture and let out a dry, rattling laugh. "What's the matter, hybrid?" Vance jeered. "No witty comeback? No grand speech? Realizing that your precious alien intelligence can't save you from a nuclear blast?" Amelia didn't bother looking at him, keeping her eyes closed to maintain the telepathic link. *Through the lower maintenance duct,* she directed her drones. *The core is protected by heavy titanium plating. Use your claws. Rip the seals.* Inside the ship's lower decks, the three drones dropped from a ceiling vent directly outside the heavily armored AI core room. They threw their weight against the reinforced security door, their razor-sharp claws scraping gouges into the metal. Realizing the physical barrier was too thick, the lead drone hissed, snapping its jaws before tilting its head toward the hydraulic line. Titanium plating protecting the AI core was designed to withstand explosive blasts. It was a fortress within a fortress, meant to keep mutinous crews or boarding parties from halting the ship's self-destruction. But Weyland-Yutani's engineers had never designed security systems to withstand the biological horror of acidic blood. Leading her brood, the primary drone pressed its chest against the reinforced seam of the door. With a deliberate, agonizing slice of its own claw, it opened a deep gash across its forearm. Acidic blood sprayed across the heavy steel, instantly sizzling and eating through the metal like hot grease through paper. Sizzling and popping, the acid ate through the metal in seconds, bubbling and dripping onto the deck plates, eating through multiple sub-levels of the ship. Thick, yellow smoke billowed into the corridor as the lock melted into a useless puddle of slag. Second of the trio, another drone shoved its massive head through the newly melted gap, using its incredible strength to pry the warped metal doors apart. Once inside, they didn't hesitate. They threw themselves onto the mainframe towers, tearing the cooling lines and releasing clouds of super-chilled nitrogen gas that froze the remaining electronics. Then, they bathed the central processing unit in their own acidic blood, ensuring the AI was completely, irreversibly lobotomized. Main display timers on the bridge froze at 01:14. Alarms wailed a final, dying screech before the entire bridge plunged into darkness, save for the dim emergency backup lights. Silence fell over the bridge, heavy and absolute. Hicks let out a long, shaky breath, leaning against the console. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, Amelia." "You are already on my good side, Corporal," Amelia replied softly, her metallic fangs glinting in the dim light. "But he is not." --- Hicks stepped forward, his expression hardening as he grabbed Vance by the collar, pulling his head back. "Alright, corporate scum," Hicks growled. "The ship is ours. Your self-destruct failed. And that dreadnought sitting outside isn't going to save you before we squeeze every bit of intel out of your head." Two Colonial Marines stepped up behind Hicks, their pulse rifles aimed directly at Vance's chest. "We want to know where Weyland-Yutani is keeping Ripley 8," Hicks demanded, his voice low and dangerous. "We know you have her. We know she was moved to a black site. Give us the coordinates, or I let the Empress here have some fun with you." Vance spat blood onto the floor, glaring up at Hicks with defiant eyes. "Go to hell, Marine," Vance hissed. "I'm a high-ranking executive. I have immunity. You touch me, and the United Systems Military will hunt you down alongside the company. I'm not telling you anything." Amelia stepped forward, her massive form looming over the chair. Slowly, her human-looking blue eyes began to shift. The brilliant blue dissolved, replaced by a cold, abyssal metallic black that reflected no light. Vance's eyes widened in genuine terror as he stared into those black voids. "What... what are you doing?" "I don't need you to speak, Vance," Amelia said, her pale human face remaining perfectly expressionless. "I will simply take what I need." She reached out with her massive, five-fingered hand, her grip tightening around his face. She locked eyes with him, and a dark, psychic resonance forced his own pupils to dilate, turning his eyes a glassy, pitch black as she literally searched his memories painfully. It felt like liquid fire pouring into his skull. Vance shrieked, his body instantly going rigid, his muscles locking up as blood began to trickle from his nose and ears. Inside Vance's mind, Amelia tore through layers of corporate brainwashing, security clearance codes, and useless personal memories. She saw flashes of Board meetings, expensive penthouses on Earth, and secret dossiers. She pushed deeper, ignoring his mental screams, searching for one specific name. Ripley. Images began to coalesce in the darkness of his shattered psyche. She saw a sterile, white research facility orbiting a dying star. System logs in his mind labeled it as the Omega-6 Sector. Clone eight stood out as a perfect blend of human and Xenomorph, sitting inside a glass containment cell. She saw the exact coordinates of the Auriga's current position, hidden deep within the treacherous asteroid fields of the Omega-6 Sector. Amelia locked onto the exact navigational coordinates stored in Vance's memories. She burned them into her own mind, ensuring they would never be lost. With a sharp intake of breath, Amelia severed the connection, releasing her grip on Vance's head. Vance slumped forward in the chair, gasping for air, his nose and ears bleeding profusely, his eyes glazed over and bloodshot. He was a broken shell, but his eyes still held a flicker of consciousness. He looked up at her, his lips trembling. "You... you're a monster..." "I am exactly what your company made me," Amelia whispered. With a movement so fast it was almost invisible to the human eye, Amelia swiped her hand. Her retractable metallic claws extended, slicing cleanly through Vance's throat in a single, effortless motion. Blood sprayed across the console as Vance's head fell back, his gurgling breath fading instantly into death. Hicks and the marines stared in stunned silence at the fresh corpse. Amelia calmly wiped her bloodied claws on Vance's expensive corporate uniform, turning to face Hicks. "She is on the Auriga," Amelia revealed, her voice cold and steady. "In the Omega-6 Sector. They are performing experiments on her. Trying to replicate what I am." Hicks wiped his brow, his eyes wide. "The Omega-6 Sector is a graveyard. If we go there, we're flying straight into a hornet's nest." "Then we will burn the nest," Amelia replied. Suddenly, the ship's proximity sensors flared to life, a loud, repeating ping echoing through the bridge. Hicks rushed to the radar screen, his face turning pale as he stared at the primary display. "Amelia," Hicks said, his voice trembling slightly. "The Weyland-Yutani dreadnought... it just launched three boarding pods, and they are locking onto our docking bays right now." Amelia's eyes flashed metallic black once more, her fangs extending with hungry anticipation. "Let them come. My children are hungry, and we have a long journey ahead."

Chapter 19: Severed Connections