Snatcher - Folds in steel

  A heaving thud nearly buckles the table above him, folding its thick steel inward—a hit from another body-sized object. He rolls onto his back and pulls his limbs in tight, tucking all of himself against one side of the workbench. An inky, skeletal tail languidly drips over the side, vertebra by vertebra, until a heavy spine thumps into the deck. There is nothing between the man and the creature save for a thin layer of rolled steel… and hope. In the light of Juno’s cage, he can see the thick cord of muscle operating the whip, and he knows it could tear him asunder with a single hit.

  This close, the physicality of the thing is intoxicating. In the cages, they looked as though they might be avian-boned, but out here, he senses the heft of its frame. Clawed fingertips wrap around the edges of the table, grasping the edge so the creature can launch itself at a target in the blink of an eye. The beast arranges itself silently on the work surface, passing over it as a ghost.

***

Alien: The Cold Forge, Chapter 15