Snatcher - Tail Strength

  D ck almost laughs when his good eye swivels to the crate’s failsafe to find it still blinking active red. It can’t be opened outside of the impregnation lab—not without triggering the countermeasures inside.

  The snatcher wedges the spade of its chitinous tail into the space between the lid and the lock. D ck’s good eye bulges. If it prizes the lock, he’s going to get a face full of lye and thermite. The creature crows in frustration as the lock fails to move, and D ck expects a killing blow to fall.

  Instead, two sharp tail strikes come down on the hinges, like the blows of an axe, weakening the container. Then again and again the strikes fall, their echoes banging out into the kennels, until the hinges lay twisted and warped from the hits. The long spine wedges back into place and pries the lid, and D ck feels the metal start to fail.

***

Alien: The Cold Forge, Interlude, D ck