Cut back to the bridge. Everyone is under more stress than ever. Rodan is itching to battle the creature toe-to-toe. Calvin has to wipe his forehead with a towel so the fear-sweat on his brow does not drip on CISTR's console. Mack supports herself with both hands on a command table, fervently studying the layout of the Alien's last known location. In the back of her thoughts, she is bitten by the realization that their options for defeating the creature are quickly evaporating. Time is not on their side.
Hicks is the only one who can control his nerves. He is the first to speak up. "Calvin. Any luck with that mainframe?"
Calvin wheels around to face the group. "God, I kill for a smoke right now," he mutters while brushing a hand through his frizzed hair. "The armory's cleared. You guys said you have this thing cornered?"
Mack says, "Yes, we do. Now all that's left is to blow this fucker out into space. Some weapons from the armory would help."
Hicks asks Mack, "The old man was with you the whole time. Why did you let him go?"
"He was delusional! He wanted to see this thing for himself, or something. That fucker always was a little crazy," Mack says.
"Well, at least the thing's cornered now. Did you see it?"
"No, but whatever it was, it must have been big. I saw the hall where he went through a viewport, and he was just...gone. A little blood on the deck, but no body, nothing."
Rodan eagerly brandishes his weapon and says, "Well, what the hell are we waiting for? The armory's open, we can take this bastard down! What have you guys got in there, anyway? Rifles? Smartguns? Grenades?"
Hicks says, "Yeah, all that and more. But this ship wasn't made for on-board action. No ship is, really. We can't use the rifles or anything bigger, or we risk punching a hole in the ship's hull. That'd be bad news for all of us."
Rodan is flustered. "So what's the fucking point of opening the armory if we can't use the good stuff?"
"There's a bunch of sub-machine guns in there. Fully-automatic, forty-round clips, hollow-point rounds. They're not pulse rifles, but they put out a lot of lead and there's no risk of them blowing open the ship's hull," Hicks says.