amplificathon

Story: Killing Elvis by hradzka

Reader: susan_voight

Fandom: Alien movie series

Author's summary:
Dr. Liu,

Got your final report yesterday on Project LV-426. I'm amazed. Great work all around. It's been forwarded to the Chair, our friends at the Pentagon, the Defense Appropriations Committee, and DARPA. The acid-resistant armor is something that should really catch their eye.

We're expecting some big grant money from this.

Burke

Burke,

Did you read even the executive summary of my report? There are some interesting biomaterials that we could work with, but I stressed, multiple times, that this creature is far too dangerous to even consider using in military research projects. It's aggressive, stupid, vicious, aggressive, impossible to train, and did I mention aggressive?

. . .their limbs work on hydraulic principles and operate under pressure, which is why they splurt like a popped water balloon when they get hit in those Marine camera feeds we saw. A slight wound to a limb takes them right the hell out of commission, and now your troops have to deal with an insanely aggressive and stupid xenomorphic K-9 unit that oh by the way IS BLEEDING ACID.

Content notes: gen; no standard notes apply. Author's rating: mature.

Download or Stream: at the Archive of Our Own (to reduce time spent fighting linkrot). If AO3 is down, check out my reader page at the audiofic archive or my Google Drive.

Reader's note: because this is an incredibly fun story and because an epistolatory fic seemed like a good challenge.

Thanks to the author for giving me permission to remove redundant email headers and the like from this reading; luzula for beta; and Language Log for the pronunciation of "Liu."

Feedback and constructive criticism: better than alien taxidermy.

Also posted to amplificathon and AO3.