Final Battle on Asteroid X

Ripley and the Broodqueencyborg battled it out tooth and claw. It was servo against servo, monstrous alien evil teamed with a horrible, vile technology versus the gritty determination of the human spirit contained within an awkward robotic forklift. They fought as hard as the previous two sentences stated, with no quarter asked and no quarter given.

"Where'd she come from?" I asked.

"Oh, she's a civilian, we didn't want her coming with us and mucking up our military operation," answered a Colonial Marine. "She was on the dropship."

"Looks like she's saving our bacon," observed Cyclops.

"Everybody, this way!" called the Beast. "I found the way to the reactor core.

The remaining Marines, the X-Men and I headed through the entryway, down several levels into the reactor core. The core was humming with energy; bristling with power.

"Clearly, we need to overload the reactor and cause it to self-destruct," I said.

The Beast studied the giant constuct. "Cyclops, if you fire your optic blasts into the core, it will do just that," he surmised.

"But we'll all blow up, man! Game over, game over man!" complained a Marine.

"Not if I have this deduced correctly," the Beast answered. "Clearly, a device such as this will give us a countdown warning before the resulting explosion."

Cyclops shrugged and fired his eyebeams into the glowing core of the core. Energy in it's most deadly form erupted from the epicenter of the reactor.

A computer voice rang out "Power core overload, station will destruct in two minutes."

Beast and Cyclops looked at each other. "Let's get out of here!" they yelled.

"Oh man, game over! Hey, wait up!" the Marine chased after everyone else running out of the room.

"Power core overload, station will self destruct in one minute," the computer's female voice calmly warned.

Cyclops, the Beast, and I piled into the Danger Sled. The Marines quickly loaded up into their drop ship.

"Power core overload, station will self destruct in 30 seconds," the speakers blared.

I turned the ignition, it made a "whir whir whir" sound.

"You flooded the engine!" Cyclops exclaimed.

"28... 27..."

"I got it, I got it!" I yelled.

"Try holding the gas down, then turning the key," the Beast offered.

"21...20...19..."

"No no!" Cyclops yelled. "Turn the key on and off, on and off!"

"I got it! I got it!" I yelled again.

"15... 14... 13..."

The engines whirred and sputtered.

"Hold the gas down!" Cyclops yelled.

"Turn the key!" the Beast yelled.

"I got it! I got it!" I yelled once more.

"10... 9... 8...."

The engines sputtered again.

"7... 6... 5...."

Cyclops howled, the Beast yelled, I hollered.

"4... 3... 2... "

The engines sputtered. We all howled.

"...1...."

The power core exploded. The asteroid exploded.

_____________________________________________

I woke up and saw Ripley standing over me. I looked out the viewport, we were hurling through space in the Danger Sled.

I looked at her. "Are we going to sleep all the way home?" I asked.

"All the way home," Ripley soothed.

"And the two X-Men?" I asked.

"They're fine," she replied. "Cyclops radioed Professor Xavier a moment ago, now both are resting and recovering from the battle on the asteroid."

"So we're completely safe?" I asked.

"Of course," she looked a little puzzled at my question. "There's no sign of the Broodqueencyborg hanging off the side of the ship or anything."

"We're not going to crash on a prison planet are we?"

"No, we're heading to Earth. What do you mean 'prison planet?'"

"Alien3?" I reminded her. "Wow, that was a stinker! P.U.! Shaving your head made it worse."

"Oh give me a break, You men are all alike," she shot back. "You all beg for a strong woman character to be the lead, but when there is one, you don't like it."

"You're kidding," I countered. "I was a big fan of you in Ghostbusters, Half Moon Street, Dave, all the others. Alien3 was just bad."

"But did you see the special edition?" she demanded. "That version was a lot better! It cleared up a lot of issues with the movie!"

"And what about Alien resurrection? Hybrid human/alien clone with genetic memory?" I snorted. "Come on!"

"Oh give me a break!" she returned. "Hey, I don't write the movies. I just act in them."

We were silent for a moment.

"Hey," at least I wasn't in Alien Vs. Predator," she offered.

"You're right, there," I replied.

We were silent for a moment more.

"Poor Lance Hendrickson," we said in unison.