That was a rush. I thought and was only slightly surprised I hadn't found or made a family of my own. With how things were going, I was sure someone would have become my significant other, only it didn't work out that way. I would have to be careful from now on to not screw myself over like that again.

Mind you, I hadn't really planned on being with anyone, either. I was much too young at the time to worry about that, not to mention how much I ended up doing to the world. It made me chuckle as I thought about the sweeping changes I did, both politically and physically. Who in their right minds considers terraforming a wasteland into a vacation resort?

I laughed, because I had succeed in both that and with ending the game of thrones before it could begin. Now I just had to decide where I was going next. I brought up the list of free worlds I had unlocked a while ago and went over the options. I really could do whatever I wanted, thanks to all the Karma Points I had.

The only down side was that I didn't want to end up being bored again. My life there had ended up becoming so boring that my dimensional clone didn't want to stay there, either. Maybe I could try something where the majority of my powers and abilities wouldn't be such a game changer?

I went over the quite long list and a few things stood out. I picked the first one, only because it was the first one, and it should have some good aspects to it, assuming I didn't throw everything off the rails right from the beginning. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I was going to do that.

I had a smile on my face as everything went black.

* Aliens (1986 movie)

I suddenly felt weak as I came back to my senses. It was an odd feeling, since I hadn't felt like that in a very long time. The gentle flow of memories of who I was came through and it matched everything I knew about the first movie, except the only difference was that a man was the protagonist. A male that went by the name Alan Ripley instead of Ellen Ripley.

My eyes fluttered open and I saw a black nurse was there beside my bed.

The woman gave me an indulging smile. “I see that you're finally awake.”

“Uh.” I brilliantly responded and her smile changed to a genuine one.

“How are we today?” She asked and walked around the bed.

“I feel terrible.” I admitted, even though my powers were already fixing up the things that were wrong with me.

“Well, that's better than yesterday, at least.” The nurse told me.

“Where am I?” I asked, even though I knew where I was.

“You're safe here on Gateway Station.” She said and adjusted my pillow. “You've been here for a couple of days, unconscious. You were pretty groggy at first and it seems like you're okay now.”

Before I could respond, the door to the room opened with a hiss.

“It looks like you have a visitor.” She said and moved off to make room.

A handsomely dressed woman entered the room and she carried a cat with her. My danger sense went off a bit and I detected that both she and the cat were hostile to me. I leaned away from her as she approached the bed and the cat hissed at me.

“This isn't working as the introduction I meant it to be.” The woman said and handed the cat to the nurse, whom walked right out of the room with the cat.

“That's probably because that's not my cat.” I told her and she sighed.

“It was found in your cryo-sleep pod.”

“I didn't want to run down the escape shuttle's resources or power supply to operate two pods when one would do.” I responded.

She nodded and sat down on the chair beside the bed. “My name is Camilla Burke and I work for the Company.”

I raised a single eyebrow at her and she looked embarrassed.

“D-don't let that fool you. I'm really an okay woman.”

I raised my other eyebrow to match the first.

“Anyway, I'm glad to see you're feeling better. They said the disorientation and the weakness should pass soon. It's just the side effects from an unusually long hypersleep.”

My eyebrows dropped. “What do you mean? How long was I out there?”

“Has no one discussed this with you yet?” Camilla asked.

“Considering I literally just woke up, no.” I deadpanned at her.

Camilla sighed, probably because I wasn't following the script she had in her head. Having to think about what to say next was quite a strain on her brain. “Okay... uh... it's just that...” She paused and gave me a sheepish grin that she practised in the mirror before coming to see me. “This may be a shock to you... but... it's been 57 years since you entered cryo-sleep.”

I pretended to be shocked and she bought it.

“What happened was, you drifted right through the core systems. The escape shuttle was in a powered down mode, barely active, and it's really blind luck that a deep salvage team found you on the far side of the space lanes.” Camilla said. “It was one in a thousand chance, really.”

“So, really good odds, then?” I asked and she almost choked. “How many millions of ships are out there in the reaches of space looking to score? One in a thousand means I had plenty of chances to be grabbed up.”

She stared at me with her mouth hanging open.

“Can I get the name of the salvage ship? I'll see about giving the crew an appropriate reward for rescuing me and recovering company property.” I said and her mouth closed with a snap. “Yes, I know the company won't do it, since I'm sure this whole mess is an embarrassment to them.”

Camilla closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath, then let it out. “The salvage crew were compensated for their efforts.”

I knew from her thoughts that it was actually a payoff to keep their mouths shut and the woman suspected they were quietly and discretely eliminated. She didn't know for sure and she didn't ask, mainly because she didn't want to know.

I nodded instead of calling her out for it. “So, now what?”

“You need to stay here under observation for a few days, to make sure you're recovering properly. Once you're given a clean bill of health, you'll be issued living space until a hearing is called to review what happened on the Nostromo.” Camilla answered.

I sighed and nodded. “I figured they would call for one, even with my verbal logs and electronic evidence.”

Camilla nodded back and stood. “I'll be in contact as soon as you're released to let you know when we'll be expected in the meeting.”

“Thank you.” I said and she looked surprised, then she smiled at me and walked out of the room. Surprisingly, she didn't try to sway her hips or showed she was in any way romantically inclined towards me. Her thoughts didn't reveal she preferred women, either.

The next two days were long and boring, because they wouldn't give me access to an information device. I couldn't even call anyone, not that I knew anyone's number after 57 years. Even my little boy would have long ago moved on and done something with their life since then.

With no fanfare whatsoever, I was given a basic work uniform and discharge papers. Thankfully, the bill for medical services went to Wayland-Yutani, because I was still technically an employee. It made me wonder if I could get issued my back pay for 57 years of service, since it was their tech that kept me out of action for all that time.

I was also given a slip with an appointment marked with the station's personnel manager to assign me appropriate living space. Since I was currently on the company's shit-list, I was sure I would be given the worst and the smallest room on the entire station, despite how big Gateway Station was.

I held in my sigh and walked the very long way as I followed the direction to the man's office. It was a huge space, which made me laugh in my head, because he did as I suspected and gave me a place what was barely a hole in the wall. Ten feet on a side with a diving wall in the middle, a corner table, a small kitchenette, and a closet for a bathroom.

It took me a minute to figure out the table and seat folded down into a cot that was barely big enough for me to fit on, if I bent my knees slightly. I sighed at the place and shook my head. At least I only had to wait a couple of days for the hearing.

*

“I don't understand why we're still debating this.” I said and pointed at the screen behind me with the ship logs clearly shown. “How many times do you want me to tell you the same story? That is a detailed list of what the computer recorded for the entire debacle. Every order is logged, thanks to the stupid synthetic that tried to kill me.”

“There's no evidence that...” A woman started to say.

“Special Order Number 937. Science Officer eyes only. Warrant Officer command code override.” I interrupted and her face paled, as did a few other people. “Nostromo rerouted to new coordinates. Investigate lifeform. Gather specimen. Priority One. Ensure return of organism for analysis. All other conditions secondary. Crew expendable.”

Dead silence filled the room and no one spoke, not even the federal investigator. The interstellar commerce commission representative, the colonial administration executive, and the insurance adjuster looked a little pale, too.

“So, yes. There is sufficient evidence that the Wayland-Yutani synthetic humanoid tried to kill me for interfering with one of its directives.” I said and didn't elaborate about how the thing tried to choke me after tossing me around like a ragdoll. The remaining crew had come to my rescue and beat the thing up, which was how we found out that Ash wasn't human.

The man at the head of the table let out a sigh. “Please look at this from our perspective.” He said with a straight face and no one laughed, even if it was stupid to say it like that. “You've already admitted to detonating and destroying an M-Class star-freighter, a rather expensive piece of hardware.”

The insurance adjuster spoke up. “That's 42 million in adjusted dollars.” He said and smirked at me. “Minus the payload, of course.”

“Excuse me.” I said and stood to loom over him. “What do you mean by adjusted dollars?”

“That's how much it would cost these days if the company still made them.” He answered.

“So, then my hazard back-pay for the corporation's equipment failing to deliver me back home as promised 57 years ago, should be adjusted to its current value as well.” I said and smirked right back at him.

The man's face lost all color and he looked faint. We both knew there was no chance in hell the company was going to agree to pay me that kind of money for my extended cryo-sleep. One year at hazard-pay rates would have seen me rolling in cash. After half a century? I would own a good portion of the company at around 30%.

The man at the head of the table continued talking, as if I hadn't said anything, and explained how it was unsubstantiated what happened with the so-called alien, and that the Nostromo set down on an unsurveyed planet at the time, then set course for Earth a short time afterwards and was set to self destruct by me for unknown reasons.

I sighed out loud, because they were still trying to pin all the blame on me. “Look, I can see you're not going to listen to reason or to the facts right in front of you. You're trying to shove this all onto me because you don't want to publicly admit the company was at fault. It's much easier to have me as a scapegoat than to admit the truth to the shareholders.”

No one in the room denied it or tried to say otherwise.

I pointed at the insurance adjuster. “If you listened to this idiot that inflated the cost to make the loss of the ship much worse than it really was, which completely ignored the value of the crew by the way.” I said and everyone at the table winced, even the federal investigator. “My back-pay can easily cover the uninflated cost and the company isn't out any money at all.”

“We know that.” The interstellar commerce commission rep said. “That's why we all agreed you wouldn't go to prison for it.”

“Shut up!” The woman hissed at him. Their thoughts gave them away and I sighed again at their stupidity.

“You're going to revoke my flight license to keep me here under wraps until this all blows over in a few months.” I pretended to guess and they all looked guilty. “I think I'd rather keep the license and go to prison, thanks.”

“No, that's too much publicity and we can't allow that.” The woman said and motioned towards the man at the head of the table.

“It is the finding of this court of inquiry that Warrant Officer Alan Ripley, has acted with questionable judgment and is unfit to hold an ICC license as a commercial flight officer. Said license is hereby suspended indefinitely.” The man looked at his fellow conspirators and back to me. “No criminal charges will be filed against you at this time. You are released on your own recognizance for a six month period of psychometric probation, to be reviewed monthly by an ICC psychiatric technician.”

Yeah, fuck you, too. I thought, because the sentence deeply implied I lost my status due to mental instability.

The man gave another look at the people around the table and the others nodded back. “These proceedings are closed.”

The secretary typed it into the permanent file and closed it. Instead of confronting the lead investigator about the colony on LV-426, I stayed silent and the room emptied.

Camilla Burke came over to me and her hand rested on my arm. “I guess that could have gone better.”

I gave her a look that told her what I thought about that and she took her hand back. “You knew they weren't going to listen and you made me come here and waste my time anyway.”

Camilla looked sad. “They would have sent the Colonial Marines after you if you refused to show up at your own hearing.”

“They have marines posted on a space station?” I asked and she nodded. “Idiots.”

“Why do you say that?” Camilla asked and looked slightly offended on her boss' behalf.

“Unless they have specialized training with operating inside pressurized and enclosed spaces, that any of their standard weapons can easily put holes in when fired, they're pretty much useless.” I informed her and her eyes widened. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an extremely tiny apartment to get back to and a whole lot of nothing else to do.”

Camilla opened and closed her mouth several times without saying anything as I walked out of the meeting room. I made my way across the station from the company's section to the civilian section. There was a nice little cafe there in the market, so I used some credits from my account to buy a meal and sat there to stew over what I wanted to do.

By the time I finished eating, not one person of the many people around me, tried to talk to me or engaged me in any way. It was a blatant hint that it was going to be quite lonely if I decided to stay there on the space station, which made my decision for me on what to do next.

I changed my mind about going back to my cubicle apartment and made my way to the communications center. It wasn't a surprise that I couldn't send out a blanket call for mercenary ships to join their crews, or that the comm center didn't have access to any kind of list of ship registries. Well, one I was allowed to access, anyway.

The military ships had their own comm channels and I couldn't send a request to them, thanks to my revoked flight status. I had a feeling the company did it that way on purpose, since I only just received my sentence and my status had already propagated throughout the station. Dammit.

I asked for the location of the colony travel agency and was directed across the market area to a fairly large area. It reminded me of an airport and it was just as inefficient, because it was the actual spaceport departure area and not what I wanted at all.

It took over twenty minutes of asking around, even to some of their own workers, how I could look up the different colonies that flights were able to go to. I was sent to a small out of the way office that was loosely attached to the spaceport and a very bored woman sat behind a small desk.

Instead of treating it like the trying time I knew it was going to be, I put one of my best smiles on my face and entered the office.