Snatchers - Tear into Power Loader

  No matter where she looks, Blue finds an alien appendage striking at her. They surround her like piranhas, darting across her unfeeling body, knocking her off balance. The power loader’s internal sensors aren’t like Marcus’s. When she starts to fall, she doesn’t feel it until it’s too late. Blue swings wildly, batting two of the creatures into the far walls, but their hardened carapaces shatter against her pincer. Their intensely acidic blood turns her right forearm into a smoking ruin.

  She looks on in horror as crimson hydraulic fluid sprays from ruptured cables in her exoskeleton. Her right pincer slides limply open, unable to grip anything. If her left pincer goes, she won’t be able to carry the egg crate. If she can’t carry that, she can’t live through what’s coming.

***

Alien: The Cold Forge, Chapter 30