Xenotaris's Alien versus Predator Universe

[xenotaris]

ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR
UNIVERSE

Disclaimer: I don't own Alien, Predator, nor Alien vs Predator as they are the properties of 20th Century Fox, Dark Horse Comics, Titan Books, Marvel Comics, and Disney Corporation.

This fanfiction will not include the following movies in its canon: Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Alien vs Predator (2004), its 2007 sequel Alien vs Predator Requiem, nor Shane Black's The Predator (2018)

Creative feedback is appreciative.

Prologue

November 17th, 2193
Earth, New York

Deep within the resin encapsulated university, a young woman of mixed american and japanese descent was running through the metal corridors when she spotted a locker. She opened the locker and quickly stuffed herself inside as she slowly closed the locker behind herself. Sweat ran down from her short spiky raven hair down her light tan face as she waited for the beast that was following her, through the locker vents she saw a massive cigar-shaped eyeless head comes into her view, its perpetual drooling grin gave her shivers down her spine as the rest of it came into view, humanoid and biomechanical in nature with four tubes and a lone spike jutting out of its back. When the beast walked by she thought It hadn't noticed her. The young woman sighed in relief. Then the lone drone impaled the locker with its tail, she felt pain coursing through her collar, she was in too much shock to notice she was bleeding. The creature moved back around to the locker, the beast peeled back its thin lips baring its fangs at the locker, before proceeding to tear open the locker door from its hinges. She tried to scream, but not a sound could escape from her throat, she realized too late that she was paralized by the xenomorph's stinger as it reached in to collect her. The drone drooled all over the floor as it carefully pulled the paralyzied woman from the locker, she tried desperately to scream but all she was doing was making choking sounds. The xenomorph drools on her wounded collar, its saliva cauterizes the wound. The xenomorph picks the collage girl up like by the ribs before throwing her over its shoulder before returning to the hive.

Her dark eyes were the only things she could move at the moment but the only thing she could see was the ceiling, then came the second phase of the xenomorph's venom, she started to lose consciousness as her eyes grew heavy. She struggled to remain alert but her eyes closed shut as her mind went blank. She slowly awoke but saw nothing but darkness, no light was able to penetrate through the resin encrusted walls. As vision was rendered useless, she heard breathing from the other college students followed by weak howls that were immediately silenced. A new sound caught her attention, it was close, real close. It sounded like something had peeled open followed by some gurgling noises. Her heart pounded violently in her chest, she didn't know what it was but she knew it was something bad. She struggled to move, she was then able to move her fingers and toes, her excitement was short-lived when she slowly felt the sticky resin, realizing she was glued to something as the resin covered her arms, legs, chest, and head. The gurgling noise came back but was quickly replaced by creepy crawly noise, something is moving in front of her, something bad! "Come on... Valerie... move..." she muttered to herself. A sharp inhuman scream echoed from within the chamber as it cut Valerie's mutters short. Valerie felt something wet slam into her face, tiny legs grip on to the sides of her head like a hand pinning her further into the resin. A smooth tail rapidly wrapped its way around her throat forcing her to gasp for air as the creature inserted itself down her throat. A tear rolled down her face as the creature pumped it's thick cold essence into her, soon she fell back into an unconscious state.

Nightmares fill her dreams, suffocation and violent deaths haunt her as she sleeps. Images of a queen xenomorph become a recurring element in her dreams, usually taking the form of loved ones before reverting back into xenomorphs. Gunfire echoed across the dark room, soon came light before darkness then light again. The sounds of xenomorphs squealing as they fall to the ground ripped to shreds by gun fire. A Berserker team checked on the state of the cocooned college students, most of them had a hole burrowed out from their chests except for one. The marines spotted Valerie, who was barely clinging to life. The Berserker exo-suit clumsily stomps its way towards the girl, it uses its blow torch to sever the hardened resin from the girl's body. A quick bio scan detects a xenomorph embryo not only developing inside her chest but it's almost ready to "hatch" the berserker team quickly radioing in the situation, "Sir, she is too far gone. The thing is about to hatch!" "You have your orders lieutenant, proceed with extraction. We have issued you a lifepod incase of situations like this. USE IT!" They quickly radio in for the emergency cryopod ensuring she would survive the trip back to gateway station.

In high orbit above Earth, Gateway Station.

The UA dropship rushed into the hangar bay, the marines escorted the lifepod to the medbay. The automotive surgeon quickly removed the woman from the lifepod into the auto-doc. The robot doctor moved its multiple arms into position, injecting her full of pain killers and other drugs to pacify the parasite. The chestburster grew agitated as the drugs entered its system, refusing to submit to the drugs the chestburster began to smash into Valerie's ribs before the drugs kicked in to temporarily pacify the parasite. "I'll prepare for the surgery," the doctor announces, "she is too far gone, the parasite will awaken," the nurse protested, "That is not what we are extracting, prepare the brain-case. It's the only way to save what's left of his daughter" the doctor ordered the nurse. The auto-doctors quickly began making precise incisions to Valerie's skull as her scalp was quickly removed and her brain was delicately removed from her head into the brain-case as well as some of her blood. The chestburster sensing its host's vitals were in flux quickly began to wake up from its drug induced coma. Once the brain-case was secured and retrieved from the room, the room was then sterilized before being set ablaze. "How's the patient?" the nurse asked, the doctor does a quick read of the vital scans, "She is doing perfect, we will place her in cryo-hibernation until we manufacture her a new body until then its a few months of sleep" The brain-case is then placed in cryo hibernation. "Hopefully the earth will be reclaimed by then," the nurse added. "Who needs that old planet, we have plenty of worlds in reserves" the doctor smirked.

Valerie felt weird, she couldn't talk, couldn't see, couldn't feel anything but she knew she was alive somehow. Her blood was being artificially circulated inside the brain-case as well as fluids being pumped into her bloodstream to supply her with food and water. Months went by as the nightmares plagued her dreams, she had no mouth and wanted to scream. Her father purchased a prosthetic body for her since cloning was illegal in the core systems. The synthetic body was custom tailored to support a human brain configuration and was designed in the likeness of Valerie Armstrong right down to her spikey raven hair and tan skin. Once completed the body was sent to the Alexandria colony along with her brain. The auto-doc carefully inserts Valerie's brian into her new synthetic body, after the head closes up and the synthetic skin is reapplied for a perfect seal. A quick diagnostics to her systems to make sure everything is working before setting her systems to live mode. Valerie slowly awakes in a room resembling her room back on earth. She slowly stands on her feet but finds moving difficult, she trips and falls cutting her hand on a broken light bulb. To her horror she bleeds white, memories flood into her mind of the hive and the nightmares. She briefly hallucinates a xenomorph on the ceiling smiling at her before curling up in the fetal position. Her Dad barges into the room to comfort her, "They're Gone, sweety, they're gone" she hesitates to look back at the ceiling, only to see the xenomorph have disappeared.

[xenotaris]

CHAPTER 1: THE CITY

Date: February 13th, 2230

Locale: Frontier World, Lv-642


Rocky mountains dot the dusty flats of Lv-642, the colony of Hercule Wells hug between two large mountain ranges, the atmosphere processor and power plants were built miles away from the colony. The colonists were still wearing their rebreathers as the atmosphere's air mixture was still too toxic to breathe safely. Massive dump trucks bearing the Weyland-Yutani Corporation logo leave the colony limits as they follow the dirt road to the quarries. Massive excavating machines drug into the planet surface, unearthing rare valuable minerals. The excavating arms dump their payload into dump trucks to be taken back to the refinery. On his dailey route, 59 year old engineer Jimbo Raymas was driving back to Hercules Wells when he spotted a plume of dust in the distance. He reaches for his communicator, "Big Dipper five-five, we have a plume of dust in region A-Six D-twelve enroute to investigate, over" "Little dipper Five-one, you are clear to leave. Evacavator #546 has gone offline, please investigate, over." ''Roger, that Big Dipper" he clicks off his communicator as he drives his truck down the path to the offline excavator. The local star drops behind the horizon at starset as night falls. Jimbo activates his truck's headlights as he navigates the windy roads, the truck's lights beamed on the excavator. The massive machine had collapsed into the ground, disrupted metallic dust still hangs in the air as Jimbo leaves his dump truck. He pulls out his flashlight to further investigate the accident. The excavator left a massive hole in the ground, Jimbo flashed his light into the hole, the light revealed a massive carved humanoid face. Jimbo was initially started by this, it resembled the carved statues he saw pictures of in history class, the great sphinx of egypt but that was on Earth. "Eh Big Dipper, I think we have a serious problem... over"


The colonial development contractors arrived at the scene with their massive cranes and large trucks. The cranes attached their magnets to the excavator as it pulled the massive machine out of the cave-in. The chasm was wider and more accessible for the contractors to send a team of surveyors and prospectors into the chasm. They beamed their flashlights on the head statue, "Is this King Tut?" joked one of the surveyors, "Nah man its yo momma" snarked another. "Okay people, let's take some samples and pictures'' the team leader Edward Smith, a 58 year old xenogeologist. The room with the stone-head was roughly the size of a classroom, large lumps dotted the floor. Stacy, a 22 year old xenobiologist stumbled over one of the lumps, "Oh my god" she shined her light on lumps revealing the deceased bodies of the ruins' former inhabitants. Covered in thick biomechanical armor, the bodies were about 8ft in length, far larger than any human being.


"Oh shit," Jimbo shines his light on the dead alien, "Is it one of them?" he whispers to Edward. Edward hunches over the dead body, he forces open the creature's face revealing a humanoid skull underneath, "No," Jimbo looked at his friend, reminiscing their days being colonial marines. They endured many hardships together, they saw the worse the universe threw at them. Fighting insurrectionists and rival political powers paled in comparison to the hardships they endured during the Earth War. The xenomorph, a monstrous creature discovered on a frontier world called Archeon Lv-426. They are parasitic during their early stages and become more dangerous once they reach adulthood. Although they are not insectoid per se they share a lot of insect-like traits, including eusocial behavior, parasitoidism, tough carapace, and a rigid caste system. However the xenomorph weren't the only aliens to be discovered, within the core worlds a species of stone-age sapient lifeforms called Artcurans were discovered on Arcturus and evidence of alien visitors have been discovered on Earth. Said visitors were also encountered during the Earth War, although there were two visitor species, Edward only encountered the one. Glowing eyes shrouded in bent light, firing blue-white balls of plasma. Its horrifying growls haunt Edward to this day and if it weren't for Jimbo, he most likely would have been dead. "Let's keep moving, okay" Jimbo said to his friend.


The surveyors quickly explored the adjacent rooms of anything valuable, most of them were simple residential lodgings or storage rooms. Then they discovered a great staircase, the way up led to an open passage within the mountains but the way down led into a massive chasm containing an underground city that stretched for miles. The surveyor team traversed down the stairs and into the ancient city of the engineers. It was a graveyard, the former denizens were nothing but bone. Fossilized carapaces of an all too familiar creature were found alongside the engineer's remains. "Xenomorphs, big ones" said Jimbo as he passed his light over one. "You mean massive," Stacy commented, "Look at these suckers, they could rival the queen in size" "I don't think we should have come here" Edward flashed his light on a massive mural. Jimbo, Stacy and the others flashed their lights on the mural as well. Alien hieroglyphics surround a massive xenomorph hunching over two engineers with a facehugger hatching from an egg in the center of the mural.


"Everyone back to the surface, if the company were to find out about these ruins and what they contain..." "Hey, what about our paychecks and our raise? I don't know about you but I didn't come all the way out here to turn back now," said 31 year old surveyor Karen McCormic. "Yeah man, I have a family to support," said one of the prospectors. "Hey where are yall going?" Jimbo demanded as the rest of the team went off exploring the rest of the city, Karen replied to him with a middle finger. "Ahh to hell with them" Stacy cursed at the deserters. "Jimbo rally them back here, we cannot let them endanger themselves or worse the colony" Edward ordered. "Yes sir" Jimbo walks towards the surveyors and prospectors, "Hey I know yall want to get paid but the risk here is too great, I know most of yall weren't around during the Earth War but yall don't understand how dangerous the xenomorphs are" "Hey were not stupid, we just want a look around that's all, maybe find something akin to an alien toaster or is that too dangerous too" said one of the prospector, James Goodman "Wait where's Karen?" he asked. "Hey where did she go?"

Karen entered one of the engineer hovels to discover a disk-shaped device laying on a stone table. She moves her fingers across its smooth face unaware of the sticky green conductive material she displaced on the device. The nanites in the green solution remotely turns on the city generator. Lights flicker on across the ancient city. The refinery roars to life as the massive gizmos inside turn on. The last structure to turn on is the comms tower which extends from the city all the way to the mountain range, a signal was then released into the planet's atmosphere into space. Karen smiles as she wipes away the green solution with her handkerchief then stuffing the handkerchief in her shirt before leaving the hovel, "Karen what have you done?" Jimbo screamed furiously, "What the Company wanted," she retorts as she drops the disk-device. "How the hell do we turn this thing off?" Jimbo asks as he grabs the disk-shaped device. "It must have broken when I used it," Karen smugly replied.

"Get yourself back up to the surface, you're fired" Jimbo orders her. Karen shrugs as she and the others are taken back to the surface.


The signal travelled through many star systems until it reached the nearest Engineer outpost. A tall bald marble white humanoid sitting in a biomechanical chair stares at a star map intensely. The signal shines on the star map like a beacon of light, catching the space jockey's attention. He traces the signal to Lv-642, the original Engineer Homeworld, Mala. 

CHAPTER 2: THE HUNT

Date: February 13th, 2230

Locale: Yautja Homeworld


A lone tower made of stone and copper stood out from the jungle canopy, its interior was made of copper-like metal walls. Copper lights illuminate the orange haze filled halls. The main chamber was a circular room with a panoramic window encircling the entire chamber. In the room center was a large chair and a console unit. A scaly clawed hand, taps at the console screen while adjusting the dials and knobs to hone in on the alien signal. The console's user let out a disgruntled growl once he located the signal's origins, the seeder's ancestral homeworld. The hand reached over to pull one of the knobs ejecting the data trapezoid. The clawed hand pulls the data trapezoid from the rom-unit, the rest of the beast stood up from his chair. Four jointed tusked mandibles extend from its fang filled jaws, its yellow eyes are deep in its sockets, and a mane of tubular dreadlock-like tendrils flow down from its head. The rest of the creature resembled a man with two strong arms and legs. Typical of Yautja, he wore fishnets covering his chest, arms, and legs with patches of metal covering his groin, shoulders, knees, and elbows. The hall door opens up, a female walks through it. "Zerachande, clan elder Dou-dach-yeyin wishes to see you" the female informed the information master. Zerachande looked at the female, she had a voluptuous and muscular figure with curves in the right places with tight abs and typical of female yautja she was much taller than the male. Zerachande reached over at the taller female shoulder to shake it, he clicked his mandibles politely, "Thank you, Jou-teia-teka. I have something to report to the clan elder" he steps back before leaving the circular room. He walks down a flight of stoney stairs before opening the side passage door.

The steamy jungle air hits him, he flares his mandibles as he inhales the fresh air. He quickly bounds to a large tree branch before making his way to the great stone city. Zerachande stopped to see the jackal-like reptilians adorned with thick boney spikes across its back and shoulders called Hell Hounds or Predator Dogs were chasing large crab-like Zabin bugs to the river shore before devouring it. Soon a pack of dog-like creatures called Predator Hounds stumbled up on the Predator Dogs quarry, the bigger Hounds barked aggressively at the smaller spiked dogs. The dogs quickly form a line between the hounds and their kill. The leading Hound charges into the line of dogs, using brute force to break the line but the spiked predator dog's bone spikes impaled the stupid beast. The other hounds barked viciously as they were now forced to seek other options. The sound of tree trunk snaps, the dogs and hounds charged into each other. The Hounds backed away when the dog's bone spikes came too close to them. Soon the trunk breaker came barreling down the forest, a massive reptilian bear-like creature bellowed angrily at the dogs and hounds. It walked on its knuckles with its massive claws curved away from the ground, its back was adorned with two rows of massive triangular dorsal plates which it uses to regulate its body temperature. The smaller predatory creatures quickly retreated in the forest while the Ursator claimed the losers quarry for itself.
Zerachande continued off towards the city, massive stone walls separating the city from the jungle. Zerachande leaped from the tree branch onto one of the wall's gargoyles. The stone wall statues were made in the likeness of honored warriors. This one was made in honor of the late Kyakin-nuu, nicknamed Deadeye; Zerachande's mother and mentor. Zerachande slaps his hands together as he apologies for dirting her statue before continuing up the wall. He passes through the slums of the untouchables; weak and barely clothed the untouchables lay around underneath tents made of animal hide. Zerachande growls to himself, disliking the treatment these yaut'ja receive. Zerachande reaches the second wall, rather than using the entrance he scales the walls until he enters the city interior.


There the homes of the Blooded were a stark contrast to the untouchables, they were square shaped hovels made of stone. The Unbloods, Young Bloods, and Blooded alike were quick to kneel before Zerachande, for he is of Elite status. A group of warriors walk in from a neighboring ally, they quickly glance at the elite yautja, seizing him up seeing if they can take him in fair combat. Zerachande growling out a sigh, he turned towards the lesser rank yautja as he clenched his fists. He spotted there were about four of them, all of them male. Their leader was darker than the rest with bluish grey scales, his second was the lightest of them with flaming orange scales, the other two were practically twins with mottled brown scales. The twins attacked first dashing between their leader and second like dancers before leaping at Zerachande with their fists. Zerachande ducks before planting his foot into the first twin's abdomen before upper cutting the second twin in the mandibles. The first twin flew backwards as if he was hit by a pickup truck, while his brother was thrown into the air before landing into a marketing stall. The second then charges forward, swinging his fists rapidly at Zerachande, the elite yautja dodges the lesser rank warrior's fists. "Grrrrr Childs play!" Zerachane grabs the second by the wrist before pulling him closer, Zerachande heads butt the second with his biomask. Giving the orange one a concussion, before staring at the leader. The first twin raises himself off the floor before charging at Zerachande, the elite brings up his fist and the low class warrior runs right into it. The leader of the warriors deploys his wrist blades before charging at Zerachande. He slashing at the elite but Zerachande dodges the dual blades effortlessly. Zerachande does a backflip on to the nearest wall before leaping over the leading low class warrior, while mid-air Zerachande wrapped his hand around his fists before hitting the upstart yautja square in the nape. The leader falls to the ground as Zerachande tucks and rolls on to the ground.


"Swit-dou-ti, Fletchin-doo, Doo-wata, and Nyawande" he spoke their names, "You are more than a thousand years too early to defeat me! Now pick up what is left of your pride and get out of here" He growls at the low class warriors. The four quickly bolt off into the next ally, "Idiots" ; he shakes his head before continuing to the next district's wall. He scales the walls as he enters the Honorable district, Elites, Nobles, Veterans, and Elders dwell here. He reached the towering Tower of the Elders. Soon he found himself within a massive chamber filled with high ranking yautja representing on their clan's behalf. There in the center of the chamber stood his clan leader Dou-dach-yeyin speaking to the King of the Yautja, Ryomande Yama-shin. He was a giant among the yautja, his skin was golden tiger-striped, the knobs on the crown of his head protruded into a boney crown evoking his majesty. His armor was made of hishtanium, a red alloy stronger than even adamantium. He sat on his golden and red throne in a slouching position with his fable naginata, the kainde amedha kongetsu-sha. Dou-dach-yeyin bows before the king before slowly backing away. He turns towards Zerachande, he pulls the elite to the side. "Zerachande, I have ill news about your father Zerri'atchi. He has joined the ranks of the bad blood clans." Zerachande eyes widen, he clenches his fists barely able to contain his ire. "Which of the bad blood clans did he join?" Zerachande clicked his mandibles. "The Black Death Clan," Dou-dach-yeyin saw the anger in his pupil's eyes, "Do not go looking for him. You are no match for him, he is more dangerous than a kainde amedha queen. Not even your late mother could stop him. Heed my words well and you might live long enough to reach clan elder one day." His expression softens as he remembered another matter, "Now, I've heard from Jou-teia-teka that you have something to report?" Zerachande pulls out the data trapezoid, then slides it into his wrist computer. A hologram of the galaxy is projected, zoom, the planet mala is displayed which then turns red. "Mala?! The forgotten Mala'kak Homeworld breaths again?" Dou-dach-yeyin growls before turning around to walk outside, "Gather the lower ranks, we of the Laughing Skull Clan are going on a Hunt"

CHAPTER 3: THE BIRTH

Date: February 13th, 2230

Locale: Alexandria Colony


These past 30 years, Valerie has since recovered, she struggled to walk for her first couple of days but she has gotten used to her new body. She still needs to eat and drink to feed and hydrate her brain and still requires oxygen for her brain to stay functional. However she does enjoy having strength she normally wouldn't have when she was completely human. With the help of stem cells, she doesn't have to worry about her brain breaking down from old age as long as she has her routine stem cell treatment from her personal physician. Her synthetic nature has been kept secret from the public, in general people are indifferent to androids but many hold a secret distrust towards the machines and their attempt to blend in with humans. Just the other day Valerie saw an old bishop model being harassed in the street. Her bedroom door opens as her doctor walks into her room. Dr. Monica Vollmer enters carrying a white briefcase with a red cross slapped across it. "Hello, Valerie. It's time for your treatment" Monica smiled. Valerie nodded to the pretty doctor with short brown hair combed back, she was about in her late 30's but she looked like she was 10 years younger. She opened the briefcase and slowly removed the syringes, Valerie combed up the hair covering her nap with her hand as Dr. Vollmer sticks the syringe into the base of Valerie's skull. The green fluid is propelled out of the needle into Valerie's cerebrospinal fluid, she could feel a euphoric rush washing over her brain.

Locale: Unknown


An ovomorph lies within the container. It could sense vibrations permeating its surroundings, the ovomorph senses it's trapped in a small container, instinctually it resists opening its apex. The vibrations grow more rapid and violent as time went until the ovomorph felt its container undergoing free fall. "THUD!" the container lid pops off, releasing the sealed content to sense the fresh air. The Ovomorph peels its apex, opening the four lips into a petal-like formation. The Ovomorph breathes its last breath as it stops supplying it's facehugger nutriences. "Krrrrrrrrrr" The facehugger takes its first breath, slowly moving its finger-like limbs across the metallic floor. Without eyes it couldn't see its surroundings, instead it searched for vibrations. It sensed something nearby, gradually the facehugger gained enough strength to climb the stairs into the cockpit. It crawled up a long surface before its senses detected it was near someone's mouth. It quickly climbed onto the pilot's face, inserting itself deep into the pilot's mouth. The Pilot struggled as she reached for the facehugger, the parasite tightening its tail around her neck causing her to blackout. The facehugger slid the rest of its ovipositor down the pilot's throat, both supplying her oxygen and releasing its progeny into her chest cavity. Hours went by as the embryo left the facehugger's tube. The facehugger, having sense the embryo had left its body, slowly retracted itself from the pilot's oral cavity. Slime leaks around the pilot's mouth as the facehugger pulls itself off of her. Its limbs give out on it as it falls from the pilot's face down hard onto the floor, snuffing out any remaining life it had left. The ship was left adrift in the deep void of space.


Hours went by before the pilot woke up from her nap but felt something was wrong, there was heavy load in her chest. She spots the dead facehugger on the floor, she calmly reprograms the flight route from Alexandria colony to a remote planet in the Dis system. The cargo dropship lands on the jungle world of Arhtom. Massive butterfly and moth-like creatures take to the skies as the ship lands safely in a patch of grass. The dropship bay doors open as a loud crunching noise resonates from within. "Uhhhh" the pilot wheezes as her chest explodes into a shower of blood, spilling all over her ship's dashboard. "GrAhhhhhhhhhhhh" screams the chestburster as it takes its first breath. The eyeless serpentine creature turned its gaze to its host, its hosts died with a satisfied look of defiance on her face. The chestburster pulls itself free from her rib cage with its tiny underdeveloped arms. The neonate xenomorph nods its head in respect to its host before slithering out of the ship. Tiny pig-squirrel creatures scurry in the grass for nuts, drawing the chestbursters' attention towards them. The chestburster awkwardly slithers into the grass like a cripple person. The pig-squirrels were too busy searching for food to notice the danger. The chestburster striked like a snake at the nearest pig-squirrel, its razor sharp metallic teeth burrowed into its prey. The pig-squirrel struggled to escape but the chestburster quickly constricted the furry critter like a python. The pig-squirrel struggled less and less as the chestburster tightened its hold on it. Once the critter stopped moving, the chestburster opened its jaws wide to swallow the pig-squirrel whole. Night fell upon the jungle world, the chestburster quickly retreated back into the ship, it sensed danger was nearby. A pack of rabbit-dogs sniff the area in search of prey. The rabbit-dogs resembled the earth's wolves except for their large rabbit-like ears, fluffy ball tails, and a pair of catfish antennae that extend down from their snouts. The rabbit-dogs bark at each other for dominance before catching the chestburster's scent leading back to the ship. The dogs climb aboard the cargo dropship, they sniff the rotting remains of the ovomorph before heading off into the cockpit. The dogs nibble on the dead facehugger, one over zealous rabbit-dog bites into the facehugger; the acid within bursts into its mouth melting the rabbit-dogs face off. Its lower jaw unhinges from the rest of its face before collapsing onto the floor.

The rabbit-dogs quickly back away from the facehugger and their dying sibling. The dogs sniff the dead pilot, they lick her fingers to see if she was edible. The alpha dog begins to nibble on her fingers, droplets of fluids landed on its head. The alpha dog licked up the droplets before resuming nibbling on the pilot. It paws stomps on the discarded skin of a chestburster. Above the rabbit-dogs a long segmented serpentine tail swishes above them. The alpha dog opens its jaws wide to take a bite out of the pilot and is met by a swift impalement through the back of its skull. A sharp stinger barb now sticks out of the alpha dog's mouth. Its head jerks around before the tail pulls itself free from the alpha's skull. The other rabbit-dogs look up at the ceiling, they see a dark creature biomechanical in nature stare down at them with its seemingly eyeless face. The creature peels back its thin lips bearing its metallic teeth at the dogs. The fully developed xenomorph cutted off the dogs only means for escape, with the swipe of its claws it made short work of them. The ones that survived it quickly spun them in cocoons of secreted resin, what was once a pack of ten were now only six. Three dogs were simply trapped in the resin while the other three were undergoing a painful metamorphosis into ovomorphs. The xenomorph turned her attention to her former host before turning back to the dogs.


Hours had passed since the rabbit-dog-ovomorph yelp its last yelp as its organs and bones reconfigure into the building materials for the new facehuggers. The ovomorphs began to open their apexes as the facehuggers slowly climbed out from the ovomorph interior. The facehuggers leap onto the faces of the cocooned rabbit-dogs, silencing their whines and yelps. The following day, the mid-day star Dis shines down on the jungle planet. The xenomorph was snuggling near its former host almost as if protecting her from harm. She wakes to the sounds of ribs cracking and blood spilling, she rises to her feet as she approaches the cocoons. Three tiny four legged chestbursters emerge from the dog's stomach region. They extend their inner jaws to greet their mother, she gestures her head towards the open bay doors, she leads them into the jungle to gather resources to build themselves a new hive.

Valerie awakened from her sleep screaming, briefly hallucinating a chestburster crawling out of her then slithering on her bed. Valerie slaps herself across the face. Ending the hallucination, Valerie quickly gets out of her bed as she sits at her computer. She types away at her PC, discovering some job listings requiring her skills in piloting. She grabs her pilot helmet as she makes a trip to the local starport.

CHAPTER 4: THE SEEDING

Date: February 14th, 2230

Locale: Frontier World, Lv-642


A horseshoe shaped starship warps above the frontier world Lv-642. The U shaped ship slides beneath the clouds as it hovers high above the second settlement Thanatos Base. The colonists leave the confines of their vehicles and shelter as they point and stare at the jockey ship. The underneath of the ship opens exposing the interior to the planet's atmosphere. A lone pale marble skin man-looking alien stares down at the settlement, he gives the signal to the others. Rows and rows of black canisters begin to fly from their holsters down the hatch below. Once the payload of canisters reach a certain altitude the canisters explode into a black cloud before raining its dark rain on the settlement. Those who were caught outside immediately succumb to its effects. Some were reduced to base organic compounds, most were either petrified or had something erupt out of them, while a few were able to retreat indoors. Tiny white-transulecent creatures quickly overrun the base defenses, violently ripping apart security and civilian personnel alike. The creatures rapidly grew from the size of a kitten to the size of a large dog within minutes of their birth, when at full maturity they reached human size. Those that were unlucky to survive the black rain quickly began to exhibit high levels of aggression as their bodies were rapidly metamorphosing into something else.  Receding gums, bulbous forehead, and high aggression these aberrations initially attacked the remaining garrisons like madmen or zombies. Though they were easier to repel then the neomorphs, the surviving aberrations began to grow longer limbs and bald elongated heads while growing stronger in the process. These newly matured aberrations resumed their attack on the remaining garrisons, fighting less and less like humans but more like xenomorphs.


Walking among the aberrations and neomorphs came a being dressed in black biomechanical armor. He pulls out a flute, he presses the flute into his helmet "trunk", he blows in a few harmonic notes. Any neomorph or aberration in the vicinity would immediately cease from their previous actions. The black armoured warrior then blows in a soothing melody, the neomorphs and aberrations rally near the black armoured being in complete submission. The black armoured being walked amongst his creations showing no fear to them. They follow their master to the base command center, the black armoured being plants a device on the base's servers. The device quickly downloads the entire colony's database to its hardbanks. The engineer smiled beneath his helmet before blowing in an intense note to his creations. The neomorphs and aberrations quickly departed from their master's sight as they now were given a simple order: Search and destroy all remaining life. The black armoured engineer began his trek back to his ship.


A Yautja clan ship warps above Planet Mala "Lv-642". The youngbloods fought each other over the "best" awu'asa (Armor), with the strongest laying claim over the best gear. Clan Leader Dou-dach-yeyin watches over the youngbloods arm themselves with wrist blades, plasma castors, burners, and combi-sticks. He spots his son among them, the elder yautja felt pride seeing his son arm himself with the best of such meager gear. Dou-dach-yeyin then returned to the navigation room, where Zerachande was staring at the holographic globe of Mala. The ship's sensors immediately pick up on the juggernaut, "Mala'kak," Dou-dach-yeyin growls at the hologram projector. Zerachande exchanges glances with the elder, "Cloak" the clan leader clicking his mandibles. Zerachande taps at the ship's controls while pulling down a lever. The clan ship is soon enshrouded by a light bending energy field.
Among the youngbloods were Swayande, Sarachande, Rouyeyin, and Tassa-dhou-di. These four young yautja were the cream of the crop among these youngsters. Swayande with his dexterity made him the most agile hunter of the group, Sarachande's high intellect made him the most resourceful of the current litter, Rouyeyin was the strongest of the litter, and Tassa-dhou-di was the ballsiest of the litter.  The youngbloods all race towards the clan dropship alongside their superiors as they board the craft. Zerachande was leading this hunting party in the clan leader's stead. Zerachande gave the signal to the pilots to release the shuttle from the mother clanship. The smaller craft is jettison from the mothership before setting course for the planet below.


The yautja shuttle lands on the outskirts of Hercule Wells. The shuttle bay doors open as Zerachande takes point. The youngbloods and higher ranked warriors climb out of the shuttle as they monitor the surrounding area. Zerachande orders the ranked warriors to secure a perimeter as he begins the roll call. One of the perimeter warriors spots an unusually heat signature in his biomask, it resembled an ooman (human) but walked like a kainde amedha (Hard Meat/Xenomorph). "Zerachande. A lone Ooman spotted on the flat plains" Zerachande clicked his mandibles, "Is it armed?" Zerachande asked. "No, Ooman is not armed. This ooman walks with strange strides" Zerachande approaches the perimeter warrior, he too scans the plain flats before spotting the strange ooman. "Its heat flickers like a dying flame but yet its strides speak of no injury" Zerachande switches from his blue grade heat vision to the red grade bioelectrical vision. The ooman's bioelectrical activity permeates its entire body rather than being isolated in the brain, spine, and scattered across a network of nerves. He switches to his metallic vision, the ooman is developing an exoskeleton underneath its skin. "Kill it" Zerachande commanded, "That is no ooman, it's an abomination" The warrior nodded before cloaking, he bolted down the hill onto the dusty flats. The ooman ceased movement as it raised its head to sniff the stale air, it turned its body to where the scent was the strongest. The Cloaked warrior deployed his wrist blades with confidence, the aberration peeled back its chapped lips baring its metallic teeth. The warrior lunged his wristblade at the ooman's midsection but the aberration quickly dropped to all fours like a monkey, but quickly dashed away like a spider. The warrior snarls as he is thrown in the air by the mutant ooman, the warrior pulls out his combi-stick but the aberration closes the distance very quickly. The aberration widens its jaws as it fires out its fat tongue at the warrior's biomask like a frog. The force of its tongue pinned the warrior to the floor.


The other warriors and unbloods watched the skirmish from a distance. The few female hunters in the hunting party wish to intervene but Zerachande shoots them with a glare. "Honorable Zerachande, shouldn't we help him?  The ooman will kill him at this rate" the young female growled. "No. It is dishonorable to interfere with a warrior's battle. You may have saved his life but you would damage his pride as a warrior. Should he die at the hands of this abomination, then he shall do it honorably" Zerachande clicked his mandibles. The mutant ooman jerked his tongue pulling the biomask from the warrior's face. The warrior's lungs burned as he inhaled the toxic air. The warrior roared definitely at the abomination, the mutant ooman roared back before crushing the warrior's head with its fists. The warrior's body twitches as it slowly dies. The aberration then turned its gaze towards the rest of the yautja. Zerachande then bolted down the slope, the mutant ooman stared at the elite yautja with its dead milky eyes. It chatter its teeth as Zerachande calmly approached the thing. Zerachande drew his glaive, the aberration lanced its sticky tongue, Zerachande severed the mutant's tongue with a stroke of his glaive. Acid blood spewed from the mutant's mouth, the aberration skittered across the dusty flats like a fleeing lizard. Zerachande sheathed his glaive as he reached over for his smart disk, flared the finger slots to activate the disk. The biomask registering the smart disk's activation began calculating distance and wind speed. A red bar dances across zerchande's vision before forming into a triangle around the mutant ooman. Zerachande roared as he threw the smart disk at the fleeing aberration. The disk flies across the air spinning its razor sharp blade. The aberration screamed as the disk sliced into the pelvis, down its spine, then out of its elongated head; bifurcating it. The two halves separate from each other shortly after the mutant ooman realized it was already dead. The smart disk flies back around as it returns to its master's hand. Zerachande catches the disk by the finger ports before returning it to its holster.

The other hunters roar in excitement as they dash down the hill to meet up with their superior. Zerachande pointed at the body of their fallen comrade. "Take him back to the ship, then we hunt" Zerachande growled. The females carry a stretcher to place the fallen warrior on, they nod to their superior before bringing the fallen back to the shuttle. In the distance not too far away from the yautja hunting party, was a small pack of fully grown neomorphs. The pack leader sniffs the air, catching the scent of blood in the breeze. It clicks its teeth to its subordinates to follow. The neomorphs charge across the salt colored flats, almost blending in with it. Sarachande heard a noise coming from the south. The yautja turned their gaze towards a pack of heat signatures that were shaped like kainde amedha but radiated heat like a poyade amedha (soft meat). The neomorphs stared at the yautja with cautious curiosity, the leader clicked his teeth, the neomorphs protruded their goblin-shark jaws as they lunged at the alien hunters. Rouyeyin stabs the first neomorph with his wrist blades in its gut, making a sawing motion before pulling the creature's guts out of its body. Tassa-dhou-di stabs the ground with his combi-stick before swinging around it to kick a neomorph in the sides, sending it flying across the flats in a broken state. The neomorph pack dispersed after suffering some casultities. Swayande bolted after a fleeing neomorph before stabbing it in the head with his wrist blades. Sarachande spotted the fleeing pack leader, he readied his combi-stick but realized it was too far away so he pulled out his burner. A crack shot, Sarachande caused the pack leader to explode. 


Unbeknownst to the yautja, they were being monitored by the mala'kak, the dark engineer smiled as he caressed the head of a deacon. The pointy head creature cooed as it was caressed. The pale skinned engineer then looked over at another holographic image of the colony of Hercules Wells, the aberrations and neomorphs were slowly encroaching on their defenses. Then he glares at the underground city's hologram, with a wave of his hand the city's egg silos become active. Blue mist covered the dormant ovomorphs, the engineer tapped at the mist producing functions. A new signal is given to the eggsilos. The blue mist turns red, the eggs glow as they flickered to life. The apex of the ovomorph peel opens like a flower blossoming. The facehuggers escape from their ovomorph prisons as they wait for the harvester. A tall brown biomechanoid with massive long knuckle dragging arms plopped down near the hatched eggs, its head resembled that of an engineer's mask and had a long segmented tail in place of legs. The facehuggers latch themselves on to the harvesters as the massive creatures begin to climb up to the egg silo's ceiling. Once outside they climb down from the slopes of the silos into the ancient city ruins, searching for suitable hosts for the facehuggers.

CHAPTER 5: THE SYNTHETIC

Date: February 14th, 2230

Locale: Alexandria Colony


Valerie makes it to the Alexandria City Starport. She spotted several spacecraft docked there. An antique UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship was parked outside the pilot registrations office. Once she arrived she made her way into the registration office. A bitter short old man stamping the lease papers of an ongoing line of wannabe pilots, "It appears to you have -2 points on your license" The old man reads from his monitor. "It was a fender bender, man" said the wanna be pilot, "Lease denied!" *stamp* "Next!" the old man shouts as the line grows smaller. After the thunderous roars of stamping and hearing the old man alternate between "Lease approved" and "Lease denied" It was finally Valerie's turn. Valerie nervously approached the old man's desk, her synthetic hands were shaking as she handed the registration officer her papers. "E'llo there little lady, nervous are we? Well don't be, there is always next year if you can't get a lease approval" he looks at her papers before turning towards his keyboard, he quickly typed something into his computer as he stares at the monitor. "Consider it your lucky day, lass" *stamp* "Lease approved! Now head down that corridor, so they can take yer picture, okay lass?" he gave her a crooked smile, "NEXT!" He suddenly shouted, a startled Valerie metaphorically jumped out of her skin. She followed the old man's direction to the next room, she stood in front a green background "Cheese!" said the man behind the camera droid. Valerie smiled nervously, the camera bot's led lights flickered a green indicating the picture was taken. Valerie's pilot licence was quickly printed out of the machine, "Here's your licence and lease. Feel free to pick out the designated starcraft of your choosing and have a nice day"


Valerie walked outside as she eyed her licence, and a beaten up PCS-X00 Proteus Superiority Fighter caught her eye. A fuselage resembling a fighter jet with a cage cockpit. A twin cannon hung underneath the nose of the ship. Jutting from the fuselage was a pair of fat engines and a pair of wings with twin foldout booster engines. She walked over to the mechanics, "Hey how much is the Proteus" Valerie asked the ship mechanics. "Ms. Armstrong, aren't you still recovering? also does Mark know you're out here?" "No, I feel much better. Also my father can't keep me cooped up in that house all year can he?" Valerie explained. "Eh, you're right. Can't fault the man wanting his daughter safe. It's about $450,000" The mechanic states. "450,000!" Valerie was shocked at the expensive price. "Hey, that's the discount price for it being used. But since your ordeal with those things, maybe I can drop the price down to 250,000, final offer" the mechanic shrugged. Valerie sighs before pulling her Armstrong Corp credit card from her purse. "Oh and one more thing? Did you graduate from flight school?" The mechanic asked before reading the sad expression on Valerie's face, "Ummm nevermind, just had me your licenses so I can activate the lease" Valerie exchanged her card and license, the mechanic began transferring all the necessary diagnostics to Valerie Armstrong's account. "Okay, this baby is yours. Try and not bang it up too much, that was a joke" The mechanic quickly reacted to Valerie's eyebrow furrowing.
Valerie opens the cockpit as she climbs in, the seats were comfy she made a mental note as she bounces her bump on the seat. She slithers her hands over the controls, she flips some switches and turns some knobs. The engines roared to life, the onboard AI began to hover the spacecraft out of the starport. She then began to pull back on the flight controls. The ship's twin booster engines unhold into a set of four before accelerating offworld. The blue skies were quickly replaced with the black void of space.


Meanwhile... On Arthom. The xenomorph has built a small nest around the dropship, the runners came back to periodically check on their mother. Their mother has since molted from her drone stage into the more hardened warrior caste. She replaced her smooth dome with an armoured ribbed design. Some of her fingers had since merged together, reducing her six digits down to four. The rest of her carapace grew bulkier as she became more suited for combat. She hisses to her children as she abandons her molted exoskeleton onboard the ship. The Warrioress spotted her children had a present for her, a green-skinned vaguely simian man-thing lying unconscious at the clawed hands of her children. The runners offer the alien to their mother. The Warrioress grabs the man-thing by the leg and drags him into the ship. The man-thing slowly awakens covered in hardened resin, "Goo-gambye-ya! Ich not talos!" the alien man-thing spoke as he struggled to free himself from the resin. The Warrioress hissed at the struggling man-thing, "HA-jooku wana harambay!" the man-thing screamed as he struggled within his resin restraints. The Warrioress having enough of the annoying creature thrashes her tail at him, her stinger impeded into his shoulder. "Jooku jooku wana haram-bay" the man-thing slowly passes out from her paralysis venom. Hours had passed as the man-thing slowly recovered. He looks around the ship to see another one of his kind cocooned in a similar fashion. The other man-thing tried to scream but the Warrioress silenced him as she slid her inner jaws into his oral cavity, before vomiting up a mutagen down his esophagus. The Warrioress turns her gaze back to the first man-thing before retreating back into the dark recesses of the dropship. The other man-thing tried to scream but all it could do was make a honking sound. The first man-thing watched in horror as the mutagen reconstructed the other man-thing's body. His arms fused to the rest of his body, then his legs fused to his stomach before inflating like a balloon. Now his body began resembling an ovomorph, the last thing left of his original body was his head. The other man-thing hissed as his head sank into his new ovomorph form, a dim light glowed as the head was recycled into the building material for the facehugger. The first man-thing screamed "Ahhhh-Jooku wana haram-bay!" The neonate facehugger signals the ovomorph to peel open its flower petal lips. The facehugger weakly crawls out of its ovomorph, instincts drive it to leap from its former body onto the man-thing's face. Wet and cold, suffocation and darkness; the man-thing felt. The Warrioress again leaves the safety of her nest to collect more hosts. A day went by and the Warrioress managed to increase her nest size with the aid of her newly hatched drones and runners. The Warrioress felt a change happening inside her body, so she retreated back into her fledging nest which now covers the entire dropship and parts of the surrounding jungle and plains. Her ribbed elongated head began to split open, as it was replaced with a fatter ridged dominated head; at the apex of her cranium formed the basis of her eventual crown. She grew 1/4th her original size, her stinger fell off as it was replaced with a bladed spade. The Warrioress was entering the first stage of Preatorian-hood.

CHAPTER 6: THE AWAKENING

Date: February 14th, 2230

Locale: Frontier World, Lv-642


Zerachande took half of his warriors northward from their ship. Great digging machines were left scattered around the mountain slopes. "What are these... machines?" asked Tassa-dhou-ti. "Diggers, the oomans use them to draw metals from the ground" Zerachande answered his subordinate. The yautja carefully observed the excavators and bulldozers, Red ooman blood stained the glass of several of the machine's cockpits. Zerachande switches between his vision modes, he spots fresh tire tracks leading away from the site and alongside them were kainde amedha tracks following shortly after as well as around the machines. A youngblood stands near the precipice of the collapsed entrance into the mala'kak city. A low gutteral noise emanates from the chasm, followed by heavy movement. A harvester then emerges from the chasm, tan exoskeleton with large knuckle dragging arms plop down on the dirty surface. The head resembles an overtly round engineer's helmet with a thinner breathing chord as it pulls the rest of itself out of the hole, its lower half being a long segmented tail. The yautja quickly entered a defensive formation aiming their combi-sticks at the Mala'kak Construct. The Harvester raised one of its arms up, the yautja immediately began firing their plasma castors into the tan colored machine. The arm swipes across its own back grabbing a handful of five facehuggers before tossing them at the yautja. Three of the facehuggers are impaled by their spears while two manage to skitter away. Zerachande flips his naginata downwards to impale one of the fleeing facehuggers. The Harvester slips back into the chasm, its hulking form crashing into the mala'kak face statue before rolling on top of the dead mala'kak bodies. The Harvester slowly crawls back on to its knuckles before turning its head back towards the yautja hunting party. The Harvester makes a loud elephantine gruttal noise. More heavy movements emanate from within the chasm. The Harvesters emerge from the chasm like angry gatekeepers of hell. "Retreat" he clicked his mandibles, he briefly rescans the tracks, "Follow me!" he points off to the direction of the tracks. "Don't lead it back to the ship" Zerachande growls.


The harvesters plop down their knuckles into the dusty flats, they slowly follow the fleeing yautja. The remaining Neomorphs from the first pack Zerachande encountered bolt towards them. Swayande slices open the neomorphs with his glaive like a hot knife through butter. Sarachande continued monitoring the Harvesters, a thought came to him, why weren't the harvesters directly attacking them? An ooman settlement creeped up on the horizon. Smoke rose from the settlement meaning they had already reached there. Rouyeyin growing tired of running stops dead in his tracks, he turns towards the lead Harvester. He extends both of his wristblades from his gauntlets. The Harvester throws a punch at the yautja, Rouyeyin dodges the yellow biomechanical construct's fist. Rouyeyin jumps on the Harvest's fist then runs up its arm, the Harvester slowly turns its head towards the yautja youngblood. Rouyeyin impaled the lead harvester's head, yellow conductive fluid oozed from its damaged skull. Rouyeyin pulls his wrist blades out, flicking the conductive fluid off his blades.  Rouyeyin leaps from the harvester's back back on to the dusty flats, the Harvesters suddenly halt, Rouyeyin walks confidently back to his peers.


His peers raised their fists in the air in excitement, impressed by Rouyeyin's prowess. Their excitement dies very quickly as the damaged lead harvester punches Rouyeyin in the back, sending him in the air towards his peers. The Harvester body twitches, yellow conductive fluid shoots out of its head as it approaches Rouyeyin. Sarachande and Swayande bolt towards the lead harvester to save Rouyeyin, the other harvesters slither on the ground hurling their fists at the youngbloods. Zerachande unsheathes his naginata from its travel form as he bolts towards the hulking harvesters. He slides on his knees as he swings his spear's blade against the lead harvester's wrists, yellow conductive fluid spews out from its open wound. Zerachande targets the harvester's head while positioning his feet, the honorable warrior raises his naginata with one arm. The lead harvester slams its injured hand down into the ground as it throws its non-injured hand towards the elite. Zerachande hurls his spear forward, the naginata flies across the air right into the lead harvester's eye socket. Zerachande bolts up to the lead harvester before leaping up to grab the naginata's handle, throwing all his weight to bring the construct down. The spear's blade digs further into the construct's head, Zerachande quickly pulls his naginata out as the other harvesters throw their clumsy fists at him. The elite yautja barely manages to slip past their fists as he dances across the flats to save his clanmates.

Sarachande and Swayande helped Rouyeyin up as their superior drew the harvester's ire away from the youngbloods. The second lead Harvester slams his fist into Zerachande's spine, sending the honorable yautja across the flats like a ragdoll. Sarachande left the hard work up to Swayande as he charged up to the second leading harvester. He leaps onto the second lead harvester but is quickly snatched and held in its tight grip. The second lead Harvester then turns away from the yautja as it bolts directly towards the ooman settlement of Hercule Wells, with Sarachande in hand. The four harvesters were immediately showered by projectile fire from the ooman's weapons.


The citizens of Hercule Wells have since garrisoned the outlying buildings into makeshift fortification units since the neomorphs and aberrations migration from the Thanatos Base. The recent arrival of the excavation teams was a bad omen. Edward Smith and his fellow former marine Jimbo were called from their quarters up to the administration office tower located in the center of the colony.  "What happened to the rest of your team?" said the Colonial Administration Representative Brent Schumacher. Edward turned towards the Rep, "We've lost a lot of good people down in the ruins"

"You mean abandon them?" The Rep corrected. "Representative, have you ever encountered a xeno before? There was simply not enough time to save them, we had to leave to save ourselves, to save this colony!" Edward explained. "Save it from what exactly, Mr. Smith?" Schumacher asked, annoyed. "From them," Edward points out the window at the approaching Harvesters. The harvesters were being showered by gunfire as they approached the colony perimeter. The Harvesters climb over the house-sized garrisoned prefab buildings as they make their way to the colony's center. The Harvesters punched one of the guards, causing him to explode in a shower of blood and meat. The second lead harvester hurls Sarachande into a diner, he collides into the diner's glass window, violently crashing into the counters, tables and chairs. The momentum dislodge his biomask from his face. The second lead Harvester then rejoins the rest of the Harvesters as they continue their way into the colonial plaza. The four harvesters began unearthing the plaza with their massive hands. The four harvesters then stop their digging as they uncover the dirt and rock covering the shimmering biomechanical layer beneath the colony. The Harvesters pull on long rib-like rod levers. The atmosphere began to emit an electrical charge as the Harvesters began turning the levers. A rumble was felt throughout Hercule Wells as the planet shook. Dirt and dust began to lift from the surface of Mala into space. The dusty flats were quickly replaced with fields of biomechanoid structures dotting the landscape.


"Mr. Smith and Mr. Raymas, begin evacuating the colonists" Schumacher plops down in his leather seat. "Yes sir" Edward complied as he and Jimbo left the representative's office. "Attention the people of Hercule Wells, please evacuate to the nearest starport. This is an Emergency! Please evacuate to the nearest starport" the civilians were led by the remaining guards to the starport. The ground in the plaza began opening and several colony buildings collapsed into the shifting biomechanical landscape. A massive biomechanical tower shots out of the plaza center emitting electrical arcs on its ascent. Strange grey featureless biomechanical humanoid constructs were awakened from their slumber as they began working on the biomechanical gizmos that dot the tower. The colonists fled on their starships into space, the remaining guards stayed behind to ensure every colonist made it to the ships. "Okay that's the last of them," said Officer John Ikari. A woman was heard screaming not far from the starport, "f**k" the guards bolt around the corner and discovered the screams were coming from the diner. The stranded colonists stare at the wounded yautja warrior. Among them was a medical doctor, "Hey can someone help me to get this thing up?" barked MD and Weyland-Yutani Representative Rebecca Serizawa "You crazy lady, you don't know what that thing is?" retorted one of the guards. "No, I don't but the company would" Rebecca reminded. "We don't have time for this, we need to get everyone off this planet, pronto" the Officer Ikari found himself shouting at the doctor. "Are you arguing with a corporate sponsor? Remember who pays for your salary. Now go get me that stretcher" she demanded. The guards leave the diner as they back track to the hospital, they search the lone corridors before discovering a mobile cryogenic pod, usually used for transporting patients with critical injuries but it should do the trick. "I hope this is what she wanted," said Officer Ikari as he motions his fellow officers to move the cyropod back to the diner. "Sir, we got movement" said one of the officers staring at his motion tracker. "Colonists?" Officer Ikari asked. "No, sir," the guard responded. "Quick get this pod back to the Diner" Officer Ikari ordered. A lone facehugger skitters across the whte marble floors, avoiding visual detection from its prey. The Guards huddled around the cryogenic pod, ever vigilant of threats. The facehugger follows shortly behind them. The ground shook for a moment, the colony's lights flickered off for a moment before powering back on. Then the guards pushed the mobile cryogenic pod into the diner's powered doors, "Okay people, grab this thing and put it in the pod" Dr. Serizawa demanded. The remaining colonists and guards struggle to place the unconscious alien inside the cryopod. The power flickers off again, the facehugger desperate in searching for a host quickly latches itself to Sarachande. The cryopod seals closed supplying its user with pure oxygen. The colonists raced to push the mobile cryogenic pod to the last spacecraft. The last starship launches from the Hercule Wells starport.

The yautja hunters quickly retreated from the flats as the dirt ground gave way to the biomechanical one below. Swayande glances at the darkened sky, the oomans starships like shooting stars shoot across the dark skies. The Zerachande and Rouyeyine were taken onboard the ship with the rest of the hunters. The pilots quickly initiate the engines to burn, the ship quickly takes to the dark skies as the last remains of the dirt ground is stripped from the planet's surface. The colony of Hercule Wells is upheaved by the shifting of the landscape. Harvesters arose from the surface alongside the featureless humanoid constructs, the remaining aberrations are taken to an uplifting facility to become the featureless humanoids. The dark armoured engineer smiles at the holographic starmap as the humans and yautja ships flee from his homeworld.

[xenotaris]

CHAPTER 7: THE GHOST IN THE SHELL

Probes bearing the Weyland-Yutani logo enter Arthom's orbit. The probes began taking pictures of the surface. The data is transferred back to the Weyland-Yutant data center. The images are then studied by a team of synthetic analysts, an image caught their eye, a growing dark spot in the middle of a meadow surrounded by trees. The probes are redirected to the dark spot, the probes took close up photos of the dark spot. The images of a fledgling xenomorph hive was alarming especially on a garden world like Arthom and so close to the Alexandrian system.

Nine months later...


Date: November 31st, 2230

Locale: Somewhere in space



A PCS-X00 Proteus codename Videl flies alongside an M-Class Star Freighter, escorting it to the planet Styx. Valerie was listening to some old 1980's music from her spaceship's radio. She bobs her head to the tune as she carefully navigates the freighter through an asteroid field.


"It's early morning, the sun comes out

Last night was shaking and pretty loud

My cat is purring, it scratches my skin

So what is wrong with another sin?

The bitch is hungry, she needs to tell

So give her inches and feed her well

More days to come, new places to go

I've got to leave, it's time for a show

Here I am

Rock you like a hurricane

Here I am

Rock you like a hurricane"


The Videl reaches its destination, a derelict but fully functional mining facility waiting for an M-class Freighter to dock with it. The Freighter moves ahead of the Proteus as it begins to dock with the derelict miner. "Shadow to Snark, you locked, nice and tight out there" Valerie turned down her music as she spoke through the telecom unit. "Snark to Shadow, mining facility secured. Thanks for the help" they replied. "Roger that" Valerie replied back. The Videl broke away from the departing freighter as she returned to the Shonen station orbiting the ringed yellow gas giant Tsunade. The Videl decelerates as her starcraft enters the stardock, a team of maintenance personnel march up to her spacecraft to begin refueling.  Valerie makes her way through the octagonal corridors, she spots a large font of LEVEL 4 on the wall before making her way to the diner. She spots in the diner several working class pilots just unwinding from a long day of space hauling and what-not. "Hey, did ya hear 'bout what happen to dem colonies out on the frontier?" said a large man with a deep southern accent. "Yeah, wait, which of dem frontier worlds are ya talkin 'bout Tyrone?" his friend was a frail looking guy from what Valerie could see of him behind Tyrone. "Heh, I mean all of dem? First with Ryushi about six years ago, then Rim, Bouvetoya, Lv-642 about nine months back and now Lv-1201," Tyrone turned to his friend while sipping his coffee. "What do ya think happen to them?" Jebidiah asked. "I don't know but I do know something fishy is goin' on and I'm gonna find out" Tyrone then glances over at Valerie as she orders herself a glass of milk. Tyrone takes another sip of his coffee before getting up. "Hey, whataya doin? Tyrone?" Jebidiah whispers-shouts to get his friend's attention. Tyrone ignores his skinny friend as he sits next to Valerie. He sizes up her delicate form and cutesy facial features almost too perfect to be human. "Well hello there little girl, what is a cute thing like you doin' all the way out here on the frontier?" The big guy grins as he sips his coffee. Valerie sighs, she turns to smile at the large man, he was a muscle bound burly fellow with a dirt blonde mullet and massive oversized chin. "I'm just here to do my job" Valerie stated coldly to Tyrone. "Awww don't be like dat, darling. I'm just trying to engage in casual conversation" The cashier then turned up the television as Solar News Channel came on. "This is Solar News, the most trusted news network in known space. Tragedy struck the frontier colony Lv-669, a freak accident involving the cargo ship suddenly self-destructed over the colony killing almost all of its inhabitants. In other news, a memorial has been fully constructed on Lv-426 to commemorate the colonists and marines that gave their lives in 2179's destruction of Hadley's Hope" Valerie, seeing the two men were distracted, managed to slip past them as she headed back towards her starship.


She climbs aboard the Videl, she plops herself into its leather seat before punching in her next set of coordinates into the computer. The autopilot kicked as it took care of all the minimal stuff. Valerie revs up her engines as she accelerates from the docking bay of the shonen station before entering subspace. Tyrone and Jebidiah stare out from the porthole as they see her ship speeding away. "Looks like she gave us the o'l slip up, Tyrone" he sips his coffee. "Aww shut your damn mouth Jeb" Tyrone takes one last sip of his coffee before crushing the styrofoam cup into his head before tossing it into the garbage can.


Valerie punched in the coordinates to Earth. The FTL drives roared as her ship slipped into hyperspace. Valerie's brain aches from fatigue after a long day's work, drop out of hyperspace, a voice whispers in her mind. Valerie is too tired to question the voice, and begins to order her starcraft to drop out of hyperspace. Her starcraft now hovers above the planet Arthom. Go to sleep, again the voice whispers in her mind. Valerie powered down her spacecraft's engines, she closed her eyes before drifting off to sleep. As she sleeps, the nightmares come back. She relives the nightmares of being cocooned, an ovomorph lying in front of her just waiting to hatch. The touch of the facehugger's finger-like legs gripping on to her head as it shoved its probicious down her mouth. The sharp pain from a chestburster chewing through her ribcage, spewing blood and pushing broken sharp rib bones out. The queen raises her massive head, saliva drips from her crystalline sword teeth. The queen embraced a non-cocooned Valerie, her body froze before shivering uncontrollably as both her and the queen merged into one. The queen raised her head once more now having Valerie's face, she opened her black eyes before uttering back to a cocooned Valerie. Make us whole again! Valerie awakes almost pulvulting from her seat before grabbing onto her ship's console. "It was just a dream..." she looked over to see the blue-green planet. She checks her flight computer, the system map reads a G-Main Sequence star surrounded by eleven planets. The planet she is orbiting was the fifth one from its star. "You're not earth..." A TF-Alpha-1 Cargo Crawler slowly passes over the Videl, sporting the Weyland-Yutani logo. "Weyland-Yutani? What are they doing out here?" She maneuvers around the massive TF-Alpha, her ship's computers pick up a transmission from the Cargo Crawler. "This is the Von Braun, you are currently entering Weyland Yutani space please state your business, over" a man with a thin mustache sporting a pair of glasses and a brown WY Logo hat, spoke with a deep baritone. "Von Braun, this is the Videl. I had to make an emergency FTL dropout, may I land?, over" she replied. Silence came from the other end, Valerie sighed, Von Braun broke its silence thirty minutes later. "Roger, we will provide you with an escort to the appropriate landing zone, stand-by, over and out" Soon a squadron of smaller crafts signaled Valerie to accompany them down to the planet surface. Once they broke through the clouds, a sea of green jungles dotted the main continent of the planet with a series of rivers snaking across its face. The squadron escorted the Videl through the Midori mountain sierra, Valerie couldn't help but notice the massive metal structure. The structure had the Weyland-Yutani's logo plastered over its face and at the foot of the structure was a large human colony. The Videl is then guided into the mountain carved out hangar bay. The Videl's booster engines fold backwards onto the spacecraft's wings before landing, the caged frame cockpit slides back as Valerie disembarks.


She is greeted by a elegant japanese woman in dressed in business attire, Valerie could easily pick up on the women's odd gait as she approached her, Valerie could tell she was a synthetic, "Greetings, Ms. Armstrong. I apologize for the inconvenience," Valerie recognized this model of Synthetic, she was one of the Fujiko models. A very popular model commonly found in japanese communities, modelled to resemble a Yamato Nadeshiko, the perfect japanese woman. Primarily they were used as adjutants or maids but a lot of the time they were used as synthetic geishas or cosplay models. Fujiko was secretly reading Valerie's neural pathways, seeing she was deep in thought. Valerie briefly caught a glimpse of the android smirking before the Fujiko model returned to a neutral face. "What is this place? Why did you bring me here?" Valerie asked. Fujiko smiled gently, "My employer has taken notice of your recent activities in the sector. She wants to give you a job since you are in the area. Come please," the Fujiko model gestured to Valerie to follow her. "Alright," she began following the android. They entered through the built in mountain facility and walked down a long corridor leading to the elevators. "So you know who I am," but before Valerie could finish, Fujiko turned her head sideways towards her, "I know more than just your name Valerie Armstrong, your body is quite attractive, yes? How does it feel to be modelled after one of us?" It both honored and disgusted Valerie knowing her body was based on the Fujiko model, being half japanese herself. "Hey my old body was just as good if not better!" Valerie retorted. Again she caught the synthetic smirking at her, what was her deal? Valerie thought.


Fujiko continued down the corridor, "This elevator leads to the main facility" she then gestures to Valerie to enter the elevator. Cautiously Valerie enters the elevator, Fujiko creeps up behind Valerie as the door closes behind them. Valerie inches closer to the elevator's opposite end as she turns to face Fujiko, they both stood in the elevator with an awkward silence. "How did it feel?" Fujiko broke the silence, "How did what feel?" Valerie asked. "Having the Xenomorph XX121 growing inside of you? Were you scared? What was it like?" Valerie was disgusted by her questions, "It felt very uncomfortable, like suffocating, It would slither around inside you. Feeding on your organs, the only relief was when it decides to chew its way out of you. Satisfied?" Valerie crossed her arms. "One more. How did it feel having your brain extracted?" Fujiko asked. "I wasn't even conscious, so I can't tell you. Other than when I "woke" It felt weird not having a body" Valerie closes her eyes. "All you saw was darkness, you couldn't feel anything, couldn't open your mouth, move your toes or fingers. You were practically just nothing but your thoughts" Fujiko surprisingly understood. Which creeped Valerie out, "How did... nevermind, just take me to your employer" Valerie glanced back at Fujiko, seriously what is wrong with this android? Sometimes she would act "normal" but other times she acts....

"Human" Fujiko spoke, Valerie was startled, "What?" Valerie wondered if the android could read her thoughts. "Don't be alarmed, Ms. Armstrong. I was registering you into our database. You are "human" aren't you?" there was a hint of sarcasm in Fujiko's voice. The elevator doors spring open, "Down this catwalk, after going through the zoo, you'll reach the administration office, make a right then a left until you enter the Corporate Executive office then make a straight line towards the secretary then take a right turn and on the third door from the hallway you'll meet my employer. Have a nice day" Fujiko smiled then waved goodbye as the elevator door closed in front of Valerie. Valerie sighs as she shakes her head, she walks down the catwalk as she makes her way into the "zoo".  Several alien creatures were captmentalized inside a barely big enclosure, they were the native animals of this world. Rabbit eared dog-like creatures pant while sleeping on the muddy floor. The Theropod-like Tojirasaurus, its body resembled an outdated reconstruction of a raptor dinosaur, scaly with pronate claws. Its back was covered from neck to tail with thick maple-leaf dorsal plates, vaguely resembling the monster from the old japanese vids of Godzilla. Despite the vague resemblance, the creature was no bigger than earth's allosaurus. The rest of the other native animals were unremarkable looking.


As she entered the administration building she followed Fujiko's instructions, she opened the door to the Corporate Executive Office. Valerie frowned as she saw another Fujiko model android serving as the other Fujiko employer's secretary.  "You made it" the Fujiko synth spoke with familiarity as if she was anticipating her arrival. "Yes I did" Valerie darted her eyes away, "Down the corridor.." Fujiko smiled. "Yeah, I know" Valerie almost made the mistake of turning left instead of right. Valerie grabs the second door's handle, "Ms. Armstrong, it's the third door" Valerie walked down to the third door, "Its open" said a voice on the other side.

CHAPTER 8: THE QUEEN BEE

Date: November 31st, 2230

Locale: Planet Arhtom


Fujiko's employer spun around in her big leather seat, she was a youthful white woman with ear length comb backed blonde hair. "Priscilla Vickers, it's a pleasure to finally meet you Ms. Armstrong. I have a job for you if you would oblige to accept it" Ms. Vickers asserted herself commandfully as she gestured for Valerie to sit down. Valerie sat in the chair in front of her. "What's the job?" Valerie asked, "A simple escort mission, nothing more, 1,500,000 Wey-Yu dollars should suffice" Priscilla cocked her head. "1500K huh? I accept the job" Valerie reaches over to shake Priscilla's hand. "Great, here take this" she taps at the computer console built into her desk, a card shoots out of a slender port. "Your clearance, it also serves as your hotel key. Don't lose it" she then gestures for Valerie to take her leave. Valerie gets up to retrieve her keycard before leaving the room.  Fujiko glances at Valerie as she leaves the Corporate Executive Office, she switches direct control from her secretary body back to her main body in her office at the Omega Site. "She is coming," she caresses the window looking down at the Omega Site. Secreted resin covers the sides of the window as the omega site has since grown around the interior of the mega structure. Fujiko switches to one of her bodies on route to the Omega Site's Hive. The Fujiko model abandons her previous task of taking samples to walk off her programmed route. The xenomorph warriors ignore her synthetic scent as they continue their daily tasks, spinning hosts inside cocoons. They have since abandoned the need to egg morph, since their praetorian had fully matured into a fertile Queen. The Fujiko model snuck past the royal guards as she entered the Queen's chamber. There the Queen was suspended on her throne of resin, her oviraptor grew out from underneath her pelvis. "Your majesty" The Fujiko model smiled, "Lilith, your Children belong to us now, soon we...I will unlock your species secrets" she approaches the large xenomorph. "Soon there will be only one queen bee" Fujiko now is close enough to touch the Queen xenomorph, "That queen Bee will be me!" she points her thumb to herself, enraged Lilith snaps her jaws around the worker fujiko model's arm lifting her up like a ragdoll before seizing her with her long arms. Lilith pulls the puppet android apart, white fluids and entrails spill onto the black resin floor. Fujiko returned to her main body, "Touchy" she comments.


Locale: Somewhere in space

A Yautja clanship Za'nacca of the Laughing Skull Clan races across the stars as they were being pursued by a Mala'kak Dreadnaught. The Dreadnaught powered up its photon cannons, and the clanship detected the enemy ship's energy readings. The yautja pilots growl and roar as they take evasive maneuvers, the clanship swerves out of the photon beam's trajectory as the beam zooms past the yautja starcraft. The beam shifts its trajectory but the clanship quickly out maneuvers the beams, the beams manage to knick one of the clanship's engines. Za'nacca jerks from the hit, many yautja warriors are catapulted from their feet. Zerachande lies in the healing room recovering from his injuries but he is stirred awake by the explosions. He flared his mandibles as he reached for his ceremonial knife. The dreadnaught fires their beam again, slicing off one of the clanship's wings. Zerachande bursts onto the bridge, his pilots were desperately searching for a star system to jump. "What's the situation?" Zerachande asks his pilots. "Mala'kak" the pilots growled in unison. Zerachande glances at the starmap, he touches the holographic star; a random system with thirteen planets. "Take us here!" Zerachande growled. As the Za'nacca begins shifting to light speed, the engineer dreadnought photon beam shoots across the void, the Za'nacca vanishes before the beam could make contact. The engineer pilot swivels out of his biomechanical chair, the elephantine mask opens up to reveal one pissed off Mala'kak.


Locale: Planet Arhtom, Hangar Bay


Valerie was preparing the fuel to her starcraft, the crew from the ship she was ordered to escort came walking up to her. "Hey you, our escort?" said an overweight man with a bushy mustache wearing a baseball cap. "You, the captain, who's ship I'm escorting?" Valerie replied. "Yeah, that would be me. So ummm heard you are kind of famous" the man attempts at conversation. "It seems word travels fast on this planet." Valerie muttered to herself, "Hi, I am Valerie Armstrong, from Armstrong Industries" she puts on her polite face. "The name is Jerry McLittle, and this here is my crew: Derrick Finkle, he is a bit retarded but the boy can sing like angel and he is a mighty fine good cook. Then there is my copilot Chung Lang, Moose is my navigator, and my husband Steve Bujo" Valerie just nods her head as he talks to her, "A pleasure to meet you. So what'cha got in there" Valerie smiled while raising her brows as she gestured towards Jerry's ship. The Snuggems was an old ZCT cargo vessel, "Onboard the Snuggems, nothing much, just a payload we received from Omega Labs. Well it was a mighty fine pleasure speaking to you Ms. Armstrong" With that exchange both pilots went their separate ways back to their ships. Both took off into orbit, their destination was the Animus system, Planet Nagaigo. The Videl was the first to depart the hangar then it was the Snuggems. Their FTL drives brought them to the Animus system, Animus-A was a red dwarf star, while Animus-B was a yellow dwarf star much like the Sun. The system had a total of thirteen planets, Seven of them orbited Animus B while six orbited Animus A. The Videl escorted the Snuggems to the sixth planet from Animus B. Nagaigo, had an atmosphere and temperature comparable to late triassic Earth however most of the planet was arid highlands, scattered large lakes dotted its surface. "Snuggems to Ground Control, do we have a landing? Over" Captain McLittle spoke through the radio, "Snuggems, This is Ground Control. You are clear to land," the ground control replied. "Roger that," McLittle replied, he turned to his crew, "Okay let's set this big turd down already" The snuggems and the videl begin their descent into the atmosphere. The Videl's and the Snuggem's computers began reading abnormal readings on their sensors, "Ah what the hell?" McLittle reads the computer, INCOMING SPATIAL DISTORTION the computer bleeps. A damaged yautja clanship materializes right behind them, the Snuggems and the clanship collide into each other; taking its wing and heavily damaging its right engine as both starships fall to the planet surface. The Videl zooms to the Snuggems, desperately Valerie tries to decelerate the Snuggem's descent by pushing her spacecraft up against the snuggems for support. As the three spaceships entered the atmosphere, the yautja clanship crash landed far in the jagged mountains while the Snuggems and Videl stayed airborne for a while longer. The Videl's computers started blaring a damage report as her wing began taking damage. Valerie ignored the computer's warnings. "Captain McLittle don't worry I got your wing" WARNING INCOMING OBSTRUCTION! Valerie turns to see a massive rock spire inching closer and closer to their ships. The Snuggems veered away from the rock spire, forcing the Videl to do the same. "Shit!" Valerie cussed, she checked to see the Snuggems but the ship vanished from her sight. "Son of... McLittle, McLittle, are you still there?" Valerie radioed in to the snuggems. All she could hear was static, "sshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....we areshhhhh...shhhhhhh....Alivshhhhhh" McLittle transmitted. "Hang in there I'mma come getcha" Valerie navigated the Videl towards the snuggems last visual contact.

Locale: Planet Nagaigo, Snuggem Crash Site.


McLittle turns to his crew, "Don't worry help is on the way...." blood trickled down his forehead. "What about the cargo?" asked Steve. "Ah shit...." McLittle tried to reach for the radio, "Ahhhhhh" he cried, "Damn it" he pushed through the pain to transmit another message, "Videl, this is Snuggem... Don't come looking for us, I repeat don't come looking for us.

"Videlssshhhhh,...isshhhhh,...Comeshhhh,...for usshhhhhh,...don'tshhhh,...usshhhh" the transmission was too broken up for Valerie to understand, "You are breaking up... Hold on I have you on visual, hang tight boys, I'm coming to getcha'' Valerie smiles as she prepares to land near the crash sight. "Don't....land...." McLittle transmitted. Valerie spotted something crawling out of the damaged cargo hull. A dark grey elongated fathead peered out of the torn hull, its eyeless face sent a chill down Valerie's spine. Instinctually she veered away from the crash site.

CHAPTER 9: THE REUNION

Locale: Planet Nagaigo, Snuggem Crash Site.


The xenomorph dropped to all fours as the videl veered away from the Snuggems. Valerie targeted the xenomorphs, she hesitates to fire her starcraft's cannons. Her head starts to feel funny as she stares at her flight controls, a facehugger leaps from the console controls at her face, Valerie instinctually pulls back her throttle as she breaks from engagement. It took Valerie a few moments to realize it was a hallucination, nothing more. She flies back around to engage the xenomorphs, again her head starts to feel funny as another hallucination takes over her. This time a pair of xenomorph arms reach from around her seat to grab her. Valerie disengaged the xenomorphs again, her artificial heart was pounding in her synthetic rib cage. MAINTENANCE IS ADVISED, the onboard systems began speaking inside her head. NEURO LEVELS ABOVE ACCEPTABLE PARAMETERS, SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY. Several Xenomorph hallucinations stare at her through the glass of her ship's canopy, Tears start rolling down Valerie's face as she abandons the Snuggems to their fate.


It stood back up as it watched the Videl grow smaller and smaller before disappearing in the horizon, the xenomorph viciously peeled back its lips revealing its sharp metal grey teeth; it unleashed a hellish screech. More xenomorphs of similar caliber began emerging from the damaged cargo hull. A few runners were quick to run out from the main horde, the runners were distinct from the warriors due to lacking the dorsal tubes of the human spawned xenomorph warriors. The runners began searching the crevices of the rocky terrain leaving the warriors behind, the warriors were scouting the ship, looking for building supplies for their new hive. The runners were quick to stumble up an oasis, large mangrove-like trees dotted the lake, tall grass-like reeds dotted the shoreline of the lake. A strange six legged armoured antelope-like creature was spotted drinking from the lake, its head was adorned with what looked like a giant fingernail. The Nailelope lifts its head up while sniffing the air, "Yeeuunn Yeeuunn"  it calls out to the rest of its herd. The runners sneak off into the reads like a pride of lions, the Nailelope all raise their heads up sniffing the air. A runner bursts from the reeds, claws stretched out. The Nailelope back kicks the runner in the face, the next runner spits a jet of acid on to the Nailelope's leg injuring it. The two runners quickly bring the Nailelope down, they fire their inner jaws into its weakened flesh as they proceed to eat it.


Locale: Planet Nagaigo, Za'nacca Crash Site.


Zerachande awakens in a daze, slowly he pulls himself up as he sees the bridge was in disrepair, green fluorescent blood splattered all over the flight controls indicating the pilots didn't survive the crash. He slowly made his way through what was left of the clan ship, Rouyeyin, Swayande, Tass'dhou-di, the huntresses, youngbloods and unbloods were slowly recovering from the crash as well. The yautja quickly began gathering supplies for the worst case scenario. Zerachande could smell wires  burning, he growled as a fire began to take roots, he then gestured to his clan to abandon the ship. One by one the yautja drop out of the escape holes in the Za'nacca. The Laughing Skull Clan quickly scaled up a rock face before gaining some distance away from the ship. Zerachande could hear the Za'nacca explode in the distance. Zerachande growls mournfully, his trophy collection he spent building up for 50 years since he was an unblood, was now all gone. The huntress Atori commanded the other females to set up the distress beacon. The yautja quickly set up camp from what supplies they brought with them. Several warriors guarded the camp's perimeter in case anyone or anything would stumble upon them. Zerachande was sharpening his naginata as he gave the binary stars a quick glance, when he noticed two creatures standing on the adjacent cliff face between the yautja camp and a vast ravine. Both male and female creatures resemble muscular oomans with chests covered in natural body markings resembling tattoos on their chest, stomach, and thighs. Their lowered legs were covered in thick boney armor as well as their forearms. Sharp claws extend from both their feet and hands, their forearms have a natural blade-like claw growing out from the wrist that extends back to the elbow. A long segmented tail that resembles that of a kainde amedha's tail extends from their hindquarters. A pair of seemingly vestigial wings adorn their upper backs. Last thing was their heads were very ooman-like as well but their eyes were more like that of a hungry predator than ooman, red markings line their tear ducts down to their cheek. Their heads were covered in short spiky hair, but a pair of wing-shaped horns grew out from their skulls. The tall one was mostly a light purple shade from his torso up with shades of black coloring his legs, tail, body markings, hair, and horns. The short one was mostly tan save for her body markings, hair, horns, tail, lower legs and forearms.


The Nagaians stared back at the yautja, they noticed that they were roughly like themselves in body shape but their long fleshy dreads caught them off guard and odd scaly skin texture. The Nagaians became disturbed when they saw the yautja remove their masks as they ate, their four mandible jaws on top of a more humanoid jaw, made the Nagaians even more cautious. "What are they?" the female spoke, "I don't know" the male spoke. "The fire scale one, it is looking at us," the female bared her razor sharp teeth.  "Let's report this back to chieftain" the two nagaians quickly removed themselves from Zerachande's line of sight. The two nagaians raced down the slopes before jumping over the large crevices, the pair leapt and jumped across the broken rock formation until they reached one of the lakes. A herds of Nailelopes race across the grassy plains surrounding the lake. Massive six legged shelled sauropod-like creatures lumbered alongside the Nailelope herds. The Nagaians leap down off the rock ledge onto the plains as they encroach on their village's secret entrance.


Locale: Planet Nagaigo, Scott Town


The Videl soars over the colony, the Videl enters autopilot mode as it eases itself down. The booster engines fold on to the wings as it completes its landing. She powers down her engines, the cockpit canopy pops open allowing Valerie to make her descent to the concrete floor. The ground crew rush over to assist Valerie, fuel lines are soon put in place as they refuel the Videl. Valerie was soon escorted to the department of transportation, "Where's the other ship? What happened to the Snuggems?" asked the man in charge, Nickey Housse. He was a short pudgy man with brown hair and a thick mustache. "I abandoned them..." Valerie finally spoke, "aliens... there were aliens in the cargo..." their razor sharp diamond-esque teeth haunt her waking eyes. "Bring up a psyche profile on this girl," Nickey asked one of his assistants. A tall slender asian woman, wearing an all white attire and sported thin glasses.


After sometime the assistant comes back with a folder, she gestures to Mr. Housse to enter the next room "Her name is Valerie Armstrong, she is the daughter of Mark Armstrong CEO and Founder of Armstrong Industries. She has flight training and went to college for a business degree. I did some hard digging and came across a top secret file. What I found out was very bizarre. She is technically dead"


"Dead? Her" Mr. Housse points at the one way window at Valerie in disbelief. "How is...she's an android isn't she?" Mr. Housse put the pieces together.


"Not quite, according to the files. Her brain is human," mentioned the assistant.


"So what then? She's a cyborg? Do you know this puts us in a difficult position? So what else does those top secret files say?" Mr. Housse asked.


"Her condition was terminal, the gestating Xenomorph XX121 was already in its last embryonic growth development" the assistant continued reading the medical files.


"Eh what?" Mr. Housse snapped.


"She had a chestburster growing inside of her" the assistant lowers the papers in mild irritation.


"She had one of those things inside of her? Why didn't they remove it?" Mr. Housse asked.


"It was in its last embryonic growth development, removing it could have complicated things. Not to mention that in cases where patients survived chestburster removal, patients died shortly after from left over alien biomass. So beyond cloning which is illegal, synthetic personality transference would be the only viable option, even if it's in a legal grey area" the assistant continued.


"Poor girl, she must have been terrified of those monsters. How's her psychological health?" Mr. Housse asks.


"Her trauma has left her psychologically compromised, from the psytriatric reports stating she hallucinates seeing xenomorphs. Should someone like her be piloting a spacecraft?" the assistant asks her superior.


"I'll take from here Ms. Ling. We will leave out the cyborg part, write she is an emotionally traumatized girl from her experiences with an alien. Can you do that?" Mr. Housse asks his assistant.


"Yes, Mr. Housse. What will become of this girl?"


"She is unfit for space travel, I will lock her ship down until further notice. Start the investigation in where the Snuggems went down, tear her ship apart if you have too" he orders his assistant. Mr. House then proceeds to pick up a phone, "Security, escort Ms. Armstrong to Isolation cell B5"


Valerie's head started to feel funny again, she heard a loud thud, a xenomorph drone was staring at her in the face. Its silvery fangs dripped with thick saliva oozing from its human-like jaws. Valerie peered into its translucent domed face, she was barely able to make out the empty human eye sockets within the domed head. The hallucination was very lifelike, Valerie knew it wasn't real, how could it be real? The door opens up, Valerie looks over to the door to see security entering the room, she looks back to the xenomorph, it is gone.


"Valerie Armstrong, you are coming with us" said the guard. Valerie nodded as she followed the guards, they guided her to the isolation cells and to her surprise she was locked in isolation. "Let me out! You can't do this to me!" Valerie banged on the door.

CHAPTER 10: THE ESCAPE

Locale: Planet Nagaigo, Scott Town


The investigators raid the Videl, they extract the information from her computers before taking their shuttles to the snuggem's last recorded location.


Locale: Cerberus Station, Planet Julianos.


A massive anchorpoint station orbits above the green gas giant Julianos, the weyland-yutani logo plastered on almost every wall. There in the main labs, the yautja youngblood was strapped to a medical bed. Sarachande slowly awakened to a bright medical lamp, oomans hovered over him as they checked the computers to read his vitals. He looked at the table on the farside of the room, there a facehugger laid dead in a dishpan. Near the ooman doctors were scalpels covered in thick light green luminescent blood. He then looked down and saw a stitched incision on his chest, glances at one of the oomans carrying a cylindrical container no doubt containing the predalien chestburster. The ooman doctors quickly glance at sarachande, they begin to panic as they try to pacify the young yautja. Sarachande remained eerily calm as they sedated him.

Locale: Planet Nagaigo, Snuggems Crash Site.


Zerachande leads his clan across the rocky landscape, their wrist computers sending a signal into their biomasks. Zerachande moves ahead of his clan onto a large boulder, he switches vision modes to electrovision. The snuggems were crawling with the kainde amedha, their exoskeletons illuminated green on the electrovision. Zerachande signaled his clan to quiet down less they draw the attention of the hard meats. Frustrated, the xenomorphs began hissing aggressively at each other. The biggest of the drones, fired its inner jaws into one of the more submissive ones. The smaller drone fell to the ground bleeding profusely; shrieking in pain. The bigger drone seized the smaller drone's  left back tube and tail, lifting the injured one above its head. The smaller drone shrieks as it struggles to free itself but its screams are cut short when its body is thrown into the snuggem's hull. Chitin, soft organs, and acid blood crash and splash against the ship's hull. The blood eats its way through the ship, creating a whole the size of a chair. The big drone shrieks to rally the others. One by one, the xenomorphs squeeze themselves into the hole.


Zerachande watched in the distance as the kainde amedha butched one of their own to gain access to the ship's interior. The elite yautja signals his people to advance away from the crash site, not wishing to endanger his clan when the odds are not in their favor. A pack of runners hiss from a nearby crevice, Zerachande growled as he deploys his naginata. The runners charge into the yautja full of zeal. Zerachande impales one, he shoves his naginata in further with all of his might. The runner shrieks as acid blood drips from its wounds. The runner raises its claws in the air before bringing them down on the yautja elite. The claws scrap against his biomask and pauldron. Zerachande head butted the xenomorph, dislodging some of its teeth. The runner falls backwards, its body twitches in its final moments. Swayande was fending off a runner with his combi-stick, while Rouyeyine deploys both of his wrist blades to take on the kainde amedha himself. Tass-dhou-di fires his burner into one of the kainde amedha, its copper-exoskeleton explodes into a shower of acid. The xenomorphs at the snuggems turn their attention onwards towards the rocky landscape. A second large drone led the remaining xenomorphs outside of the ship towards the boulders. A human shuttle zooms overhead catching the lead drone's attention.


The shuttle pilot looks down from his cockpit, "Oh that's not good" he stares at the xenomorphs gathering on the ground. "Base, this is eagle-1. The Snuggem's cargo is compromised. Specimens are loose and about, I repeat, Specimens are loose and about; over" the shuttle retreats across the horizon. The second big drone leads the rest of the xenomorphs in the opposite direction of the yautja; they now travel west in the direction of the shuttle. When the shuttle arrives at Scott Town, it flies over the massive electrical fences that surround the colony perimeter. Large bulldozers return from the south passage, its tires covered in arrows fired by the natives. The shuttle lands in the starport, its pilots come running out in a panic. The pilot, Jacob Malory bursts into the department of transportation's office. "Mr. Housse, sir! Mr. Housse, sir!" The pilot was out of breath.


"What is it Mr. Malory?"


"Sir about my report.." Before the pilot would rereport his findings, he is interrupted by a voice over the computer.


"Mr. Housse they are back again" said the gate guards, "Damn natives" Mr. Housse curses.

There stood two teenage nagaians, the girl was dressed in a fur bikini and the boy was dressed in a mixture of furs and bone armor. "Akae and Takashin" Mr. Housse spoke over the computer, "What do you kids want this time?" Mr. Housse asked.


"Our elder has fallen ill, we beg of you can you spare us your medicine? " Akae asked politely. Akae was typical of Nagaians in general build, if somewhat shorter than average and her companion Takashi is typical of male nagaians in build, muscular and tall.


"Look I know you people are struggling and all but this isn't a Red Cross, we are running low on our own supplies" Mr. Housse barked through the computer, "Look I'll cut you kids a deal, we just lost a shipment, maybe if you go look for our missing shipment; I'll let you have some of our stock, sound like a deal?"


The two young nagaians exchanged glances at each other. Before the nagaians could reply, Malory started shouting, "Sir, I found the shipment!"


Mr. Housse turns around in his chair, "Geeze Malroy, I was in the middle of something? Shut up! Wait what did you say about the shipment? You found it?" Mr. Housse was intrigued, "Sorry Kids, better luck next..."


"Wait sir, this is important, it affects them as much as us!" Malory interrupts again.


"Heh, sure it does" Mr. Housse disconnects the feed to colony gates.


"Sir, the specimens are loose. If left unchecked they could be here within a day" Malory continued, Mr. House glared at Malory before reconnecting the feed to the nagaians outside.


"Well kids, it's your lucky day. Come inside, my assistant will take you to the pharmacy" Mr. Housse spoke through the computer. He then turns to Malory, "What? I'm a hardass, not an asshole" he spins back around in his chair.


The colony blast doors slide up into the gate frame, Grahnnnn, the door locks in place. Akae and Takashin crossed into the threshold. They see another blast door on the other side of the tunnel-esque gatehouse. Grahnnn, the blast door behind them shuts closed. Grahnnn, The blast door in front of them then opens up. The two nagaians wander into the colony, Mr. Housse's assistance walked up to the teenage natives, she gestured to Akae and Takashin to follow her.


"We built schools for these aliens...I mean natives and what do we get? Moochers and thieves" a man whispered to his colleague while glaring at the two nagaians passing by.

"Hey at least Nagaian poontang is better than arcturian poontang, am I right guys?" commented his friend. The others burst out in fits of laughter, while the glaring man exchanged a serious stare to his colleagues.



Later that evening, on the outskirts of Scott's Town the xenomorphs gather behind the boulders. The lead warrior hisses to the runners to scout out the perimeter. The runners slowly climbed down into the valley, the dirt reeked of gasoline and the scent of prey. The quadrupedal xenomorphs carefully snuck behind any large rock big enough to conceal their forms, waiting for nightfall. The runners have picked up two large sources of prey scent, the colony beyond the rocks and the scattered small boulders between them. The runners splitted into smaller packs as they head off to both prey sources. The leading runner pack dash out from the cover of the large rocks, they quickly overrun the few guards guarding the colony entrance. A few runners try to climb over the gate house only to be zapped to death by the electric perimeter fence.


The second runner pack swarms over to the seemingly random rock placements. The runners can smell the scent of prey all over the rocks. A curious xenomorph runner pushes the small boulder with its head. Once the small boulder was dislodged from its original placement, the scent intensified. The runner hisses joyfully at its accomplishment, the other runners glance at their sister. The accomplished runner squeezes herself into the small crevice, her tail thrashes around before slipping deeper into the small hole.


"WARNING! INTRUDERS AT SOUTH GATE!" the colony computer blared over the intercoms. The colonial security force awake to the alarms, they quickly leap out of their beds as they dress themselves. They then rush to the armor to don their weapons and body armor before heading to the gatehouse and the security control room. The guards in the control room viewed on multiple monitors, the south gate entrance was swarming with copper colored banana head creatures. The runners were dragging the outside security personnel away from the gates. The security force opens the gatehouse as they rush into the tunnel, the gate closes behind them as they double time to the next gate door. The blast door opens to the outside, the security force begins to fire on the xenomorph runners. The ones they manage to hit schriek as they fall over dead. The other runners quickly drop their prey as they bolt towards the security guards. The guards fire open the creatures but the eyeless bastards when directly confronted were too fast to hit. They tackle the guards, head biting into their skulls before moving on to their next target. One of the remaining guards drops his M41A Pulse as he rushes over to the security panel, seeing his friends being butched or dragged off into the night; he didn't want to suffer the same fate. He pulled down the emergency switch, and the blast doors began to shut close. The guards turned in terror as the blast door began close behind them. One of the runners bolts towards the closing blast door, its slender form manages to squeeze beyond the closing doors into the gatehouse tunnel.


The runner spots the security guard attempting to release the city door, fast like lightning the runner closes the distance between predator and prey. The interior door began to open, the runner was startled by the opening of the blast door for a moment. The coward guard attempts to run past the copper xenomorph, the runner quickly refocuses her gaze back to the guard. She charges into the fleeing human, sending him flying across the pavement. She launches her inner jaws into his spine, crippling the coward before bolting off into the colony interior. The security force in the control room scramble to close the interior gate but it was already too late, one of them had already entered the colony.


The remaining security force scrambled to hunt down the runner but alone  a xenomorph is extremely crafty. The runner instinctually took to the air ducts to hide from the humans. She observed from the grates as the security teams began their sweep. Her senses picked up an electrical source, she navigated through the ducts to the powerstation. She removes the grate separating her from the powerstation interior. Her slender biomechanical form spills out of the air duct, she raises her head as she rises on her hand legs. She lunges at the power box, clawing it before firing her inner jaws into electrical components. The electricity surges through her biomechanical body, knocking the little xenomorphs backwards. The runner falls on her face, dead.


The powered doors suddenly all open, with the exception of the blast doors. Sensing the fences no longer were producing an electrical current the runners screech out to the warriors. The lead warrior growls to her packmates as they press the attack, the bipedal xenomorphs charge straight towards the colony gates. They quickly overran the colony walls as they entered the colony, the remaining security force began opening fire into the warriors but they were quickly overpowered by the black xenomorphs. The colonists hid inside their rooms as the sounds of gunfire and xenomorph screeching echoed in the halls. Valerie awakened from her cell, she peeked through her cell door's window. She saw security running past the window port, and they began opening fire at something.


Valerie began banging on the door, "Hey what's going on?" she asked. "It's none of your concern, citizen. Remain where you are and hide" the security officer demanded.


A man screamed not too far away, "Shit!" the security officer bolted past the door. Valerie continued to look through the small window. She could see the silhouettes of the guards' shadows passing by a wall before disappearing into the adjacent hallway. Gunfire, followed by the howling screams of the officers. Then a dead silence.


Valerie continued to peer through the window. Finally a shadow graced the back lit wall, it wasn't human. Banana-shaped head, two dorsal tubes on its back with a single dorsal spike in the center of its spine, and a long scorpion-esque tail. Valerie's eyes widened in terror as memories of her cocoonment came surfacing in her mind. Valerie dashes to hide her under her bunk as the xenomorph turns its gaze towards the cells. It lets out a sharp hisses as it approaches the door.

CHAPTER 11: THE FIGHT

Locale: Planet Nagaigo, catacombs.


The runners and shortly afterwards; warriors, slid into the tight crevices of the holes that were formerly covered by the small boulders. The cramped tunnels then opened to a massive chasm. The xenomorphs curle themselves into a ball as they plummeted into the dark waters below. As they sink, they unfurl themselves, they swim gracefully to the surface. Their dorsal tubes burst through the water like shark fins, followed by the top of their head and their long segmented tails.


The Nagaian braves were alerted by the splashes. "Halt, who goes there?" shouted the nagaian brave, as he approached the dark shores. A long segmented skeletal tail rises out of the water followed by an elongated ribbed and seemingly eyeless head. The Nagaian brave reaches for his spear as the rest of the beast arose from the water, two humanoid arms and legs attached to a vaguely skeletal biomechanical torso. Without hesitation the xenomorph warrior dashes out of the water, the nagaian brave barely had enough time to block the warrior's initial attack.


The warrior grabbed the Brave's spear, its biomechanical muscles bulged as it applied pressure on the bone spear. The warrior hisses as it shatters the bone spear into pieces. The Brave falls backwards as the xenomorph falls onto all fours, the warrior raises its head to face the brave. He barely caught a glimpse of something crawling on its back. The Brave charges towards the warrior, the warrior rises on its legs as stretches its hand out to grasp the nagaian by the face. The Brave's eyes widen as he is thrown to the ground, the warrior pins the nagaian to the floor as a facehugger comes crawling down its arm. The Brave struggles but it is no use, the warrior turns the brave's head to face the larval xenomorph. The facehugger wraps its finger-like legs around the nagaian's head and its tail around his throat.


The warrior hisses to the other xenomorphs to attack the Nagaian Village. The braves assemble charged in with their spears, swords, and axes. With the strength of the Warriors and speed of the Runners, the xenomorphs overpowered the braves' best efforts. The nagaians lucky enough to die quickly were cut down by the xenomorph's claws, impaled by their stinger tails, and their skulls crushed by their inner jaws. The unlucky ones were gathered to be cocooned and later implanted. The xenomorphs chased after the few nagaians that managed to flee. As their prey headed for higher ground, the xenomorphs suddenly halted their pursuit. The warriors and runners returned to the raised village, they recycled the bodies of those slain into building material for their new hive.


Meanwhile, Valerie resigns to her bunker as the xenomorph peered in the window. Valerie could barely see the human skull buried within the xenomorph's dark translucent face. The lights die out, the door slides open. The emergency lights kick in, red lights illuminate the room. The xenomorph slowly approaches Valerie, its mouth drooling profusely as it makes its way to her. Valerie was paralized with fear as the xenomorphs halted its movements, its head jittering as it peels back its lips. It opens its jaws, drool and spit comes leaking out as its inner jaws extend from the dark recess of its mouth. Valerie closes her eyes, fearing the worst is about to come. The xenomorph retracts its inner jaws, instead the xenomorph grabs a hold of Valerie's head. The creature carefully examines Valerie, the transparency of its face becomes more clear when up closer. She could barely make out that its eye sockets weren't so empty, she only saw it for a moment, solid black orbs caught the refractured lens of light.


The xenomorph lost interest in her from the neck down as it repeatedly kept examining her head time and time again. It was her brain, the only thing left of her that is human. The alien is confused whether to ignore her or take her in as a host or eat what little biomass she had. The smell of her synthetic body was keeping it from doing the latter, but yet it continues to hold her in place. Valerie barely caught a glimpse of a heat shimmering, was there a gas leak? She didn't smell any gas. The xenomorph shrieks in her face, its clawed nails bury themselves deep into the scalp and the back of her ear. White fluid oozes from her wounds. Valerie was just mere inches away from a serrated blade sticking out of the xenomorph warrior's sternum. However some of its blood is now eating away at her shoulder. The xenomorph thrashes its tail. Valerie saw the heat shimmers forming around the alien's tail, the exoskeletal plating buckles in as if someone is squeezing it. A pair of metal blades seemingly manifest out of thin air , above the warrior's tail. The blades come down slicing the creature's tail off. The xenomorph howls as it crashes into the bunk, valerie was forced to lay next to the collapsed monster. Valerie saw a massive spear sticking out of the xenomorph's back. Valerie then looked up at the heat shimmers, Valerie heard a series of clicking noises out of nowhere.  Soon the heat shimmers gave way to a tall muscular alien creature wearing armor and fishnets.


He retracts his wrist blades as he retrieves his combi stick out of the dead xenomorph. Valerie watched as the new creature kneeled down on the dead one. With a quick slice with its glaive, it removes the xenomorph's head. Valerie could feel the creature's grasp on her head weakening. She sighs in relief, the combi stick is then stabbed into the floor between Valerie and the xenomorph. She is lifted up by the head once more, the yautja gives her a hard stare. "Error...error..damage critical" Valerie pretended to be one of the "stupid" synthetics. The yautja just gently tossed her to the floor before grabbing his combi stick on the out.