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· Chapter I · Hunted Secrets ·

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Year : 2570

Micor sector, Terra Mirror

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They said it was an unbalance in the natural scale. They said it was always the risk with a planet that was originally not inhabitable, as with any terraforming project. They off course did not say it just was cheaper to work on New Eden than repair any flawed ecosystem ... or rather, flawed atmosphere.

The same rain had descended for months on end, soaking the lands beyond what it could handle and the remedy had come too late. The trees had started rotting while they were still alive, the last remaining animals scavenged anxiously for something edible. Algae thrived on what little light passed reached down, cutting off life chances for any other plants and polluting the water even further.

What appeared to be a cave entrance let go of drops at regular intervals. This created little streams that ran deeper into the cave, but they would be caught in the damp earth before they would ever reach the subterranean rivers.

Here an old little frog sat, deaf by poison and echoes of a cave it was never meant to live in. It didn't heard the snake approaching.

When it finally caught movement in the corner of its eye, it was almost too late. A vain attempt to hop away was intercepted, it was scooped up in mid-air.

Yet it landed a few meters away in a puddle, only a little confused; not the snake but the metal surface belonging to a boot had caught it, which in turn belonged to a hunter who would never bother with something as small as a frog.

At least, normally they wouldn't.

The yautja looked down as the frog jumped away, then saw the snake curl up and hiss at him. After watching it a moment, he stepped on the snake's head and crushed it. Clattering of mandibles replaced the hiss, but not for long — another, older hunter reprimanded him for his waste of time.

The young one grudgingly followed him into the cave. Ahead of them was a long trek through a labyrinthine set of bunkers and halls, the remnants of a sunken human settlement. On their way, the elder hunter took his time to find a certain something by use of various scans. The younger didn't care much, there was little in this environment to keep his interest.

So, when they reached a river and the elder muttered something more about his scans, he was quite off guard when he was pushed into the river without apparent warning.

"Karga'te, go get that." With that, the elder pointed at something presumably lying on the bottom of the shallow river; he couldn't see what.

Irritated, but knowing he didn't have the strength to demand Tehen'rei do it himself, the young yautja bent down at the spot he had been told to.

He pulled out what seemed to be a cluster of white fungus, wires and rags; at closer inspection it were the remnants one of those fake lifeforms created by humans. Android, synth or Auton, they had varying names for them.

On shore he dropped it as quick as possible. The elder inspected it, concluded it was their target and that what they sought wasn't here anymore, but had been.

Irritably Karga'te growled, he had a feeling what was about to come next. And indeed, Tehen'rei ordered him to follow the river downstream, just in case.

"I'll go find the other one." the elder said. "Report to me if you find anything."

He hated any body of water larger than what he needed to survive. Tehen'rei knew that, probably thought this was amusing. But he had no choice, even in a group of outcasts there still were social structures and Karga'te happened to be the weaker here. So, he set his scanner on permanently active and followed the river by side, hoping he could stay out of it for a while.

Tehen'rei meanwhile continued towards a bunker farther away, which he opened with a single plasma blast, leaving quite a bit of rubble in its wake.

The place was hidden safely from any scan methods beyond the stratosphere, it was a cold room devoid of radio signals or even generators. Rotting clothes lay scattered around, a boot here, metal furniture covered with rust. Somewhere here a cryo-container should be as well, which he desperately hoped had not washed down that river.

He soon noticed a thin wind draft, the air he had brought along upon entrance was being sucked into another chamber.

The chamber it led to was empty though. The container couldn't be here, since nothing was here to hide it in. Disappointment and anger threatened to overtake him, but he was old, he could restraint those emotions. He walked a little further in, wondering what the clue was ...

Off course, it was too obviously impossible to hide it here.

He adjusted his scanners a little, quickly finding the secret : the ceiling was hollow. This he had to be more careful about than a plasma cast. So he dragged some furniture from the other room and stepped on it, for even with his height he couldn't reach up otherwise.

Once relatively stable, he set a hand against the ceiling and extended his wrist blades on the other, ramming them in with full force. The hard plastic was difficult to tear apart and required some patience, in fact, it worked much like glass. Cracks appeared all over it but nothing happened until all came crashing down in a single implosion.

He fell down, dirt and plastic piling up around him. His guarded self almost lost composition, but once he had struggled free he found what he was looking for : the container lay half buried aside of his legs. Quickly gathering it up, he scanned it. Inside the cold, vaguely five oval shapes were visible. A sense of triumph, if ever so small, overcame him. He stood up and wanted to contact Karga'te, but stopped in his track.

Those were no eggs, only egg holders.

Hello there, Disappointment. The eggs were gone, so that android indeed had been what had tried to carry it away, it had come after the humans had left. So, what had destroyed it?

Meanwhile, Karga'te had encountered a spot where the river submerged and had stepped in to follow, hence he never heard the roar nor the shriek.

The further he went, the stronger the currents became. A few times he'd been slammed against a wall and torn open his skin, his breath was running out and it was painfully cold. But stubborn choices in the past had gotten him into this life, he had no intention to go out before he could come back on that past. While like all his new 'friends' he had no code to live or die for, he had other reasons.

At the next inner cave, he grabbed a rock, kicked off against the sharp floor and hauled himself out of the tearing river. Collapsing onto his knees he remained on the shore for a minute, catching his breath and letting what little warmth there was return to his sore muscles. Then he looked around.

He was either in a cave or a decayed hall, he couldn't tell, but there was an exit, which he gladly took over returning to the stinking water. Tehen'rei was intimidating, but not as intimidating as the prospect of death.

This exit in question was a hole from which a draft came, perhaps a disposal shaft from long ago. The strange rubble lying in this cave certainly suggested so. He could easily jump that high, but the size of the shaft was another thing, he had to crawl on his stomach to go through.

It took long before he reached the open again and there hardly was fresh air to welcome him, but he was relieved anyway. Really, the lack of fresh air was less of a dampener than the mud he promptly sunk in past his knees.

Great, more drappy stuff.

Specifically, more android drap.

Scattered around him were the remnants of several androids, every single one of them torn apart. Disinterested, he was about to leave when he noticed a container. With some effort he pulled it out of the mud. It wasn't the same as described in the files he had been shown, but his scanner indicated there were small eggs inside.

Satisfied, he clattered his mandibles together. Tehen'rei would be so ticked if he managed report he had found it, because then the elder wouldn't be able to take credit.

Now, he didn't care to think about what circumstances had brought it here, but part of the answer announced itself at that moment. Something came crawling up the shaft.

Instinctively he wrestled around to face the entrance, the familiar sound approached. Within seconds the facehugger launched towards his face, but he caught it midair. Rapidly he pulled off the legs and tossed it far away; no need to waste his wrist blades on the acid.

Alright. Hardmeat where it wasn't supposed to be. Nothing new.

He went on to dry ground and continued back, container clutched under one arm and using the other to keep balance on the treacherous ground. He had a few kilometers ahead like this, but with that river behind him he was hardly concerned for what lay ahead ... not that it stopped him from swearing over every little slip. Eventually he found the dry road they had taken on their way to the submerged settlement and from there on made better progress.

It wasn't quite looking up though, someone else had arrived at the ship before him.

The trident corona stuck out above the fog, he could see it from far away. Curious at the ship, it moved around it, apparently inspecting it. Perhaps it waited for more to arrive, so that they could enter it by blood. Perhaps it waited for its owners to return, so it could bring home a new host. Whatever a hardmeat did, it could not be something beneficial to him.

What it didn't do though was helpful. As if this point, Karga'te hadn't been spotted. Hardmeat had many ways of sight that he didn't quite understand, but someone had told him once that how adept they were in a particular type could vary. If these hardmeat went on scent in the first place, they had a horrible hunting terrain in this windless land of rot. If it was echo location, ... well, he knew next to nothing about that. Then there had been something about photo-sensitive cells on their corona, meaning he'd be toast if the thing decided to climb the ship.

He sat down against a rock and did the only thing he could do : wait for Tehen'rei. As a lone, not so experienced hunter, it would be madness to face a praetorian simply by walking up to it. Now, he did like the idea of leaving Tehen'rei behind, the jerk deserved it according to him, but in facing a praetorian he needed an advantage which only the elder yautja could give him. Plasma casters would be useful, to be specific.

So when a powerful air current tore the mist off the lands like a veil, he was quite peeved. In full force the marshes were lifted to the sky as the shockwave of the explosion carried even this far. What wasn't torn up was pushed down, everything moved a little further from where once the town had been. A fierce light filled the lands for a few seconds, then all the mud and algae came down almost as quick, transforming ship, yautja and praetorian into identical piles of goo.

Cursing at Tehen'rei, Karga'te struggled to his feet and noticed the container was no longer present. He rapidly shifted through several sight modes, in vain. He had been thrown through the air a short distance but the light container could be a lot further.

The praetorian meanwhile was too heavy to be lifted ... the yautja was much closer to it now. He turned around to find the creature facing his direction and immediately took a defensive stance. But then it became clear why he wasn't attacked yet : the praetorian had stumbled into a marsh and was sucked stuck.

In retrospect, Tehen'rei committing yautja style suicide was also an acceptable advantage.

Or maybe not. Because there he spotted the container, broken by collision with something, and the dim outline of the eggs scattered around. Blasted. He could pick up the eggs that remained, but he needed that container to lock them, lest he wanted to deal with what was inside. And said container was just a few meters away from the praetorian.

Cautiously he approached, estimating the creature's range. He'd had to be careful of the tail in any case, but so far hissing seem to be the only thing it could do, and just for a moment he stopped to look at the creature : he had never seen a praetorian in real life. Facehuggers were nothing new, a drone he had once seen from a distance, and he'd seen the images in databases and on hieroglyphs, yet seeing it in real life was quite a different thing ... hunters would die for a chance to have its skull on their trophy wall and he understood why. It was raw, undiluted power that the yautja themselves would never truly posses. He chuckled at the thought that he had escaped a life of hunting for an ultimate glory that would always be out of reach.

Before his thoughts went elsewhere, he waded into the water and picked the container off of a small bushed, his eyes remaining on the seemingly helpless praetorian.

It wasn't that helpless though, as he learned three seconds later when the praetorian managed to pushed itself ahead far enough to throw him over. The water washed over his mask, but he could see the fangs coming down.

Now this was a good reason to waste his wristblades. Before the praetorian could bite down, he rammed his fist up and extended the blades at that moment, setting his full weight against the skull. From this lying position it was impossible to create enough strength to go through the thick plating, but the damage he did to the jaws was enough to make the beast recoil in pain. Part of the blades remained in the wind, melting away already, while Karga'te struggled onto his feet and backed onto dry land.

The praetorian tried to follow, shrieking in anger, but the damp underground wouldn't let go.

The yautja caught his breath, a flare of fear taking announcing itself, but the anger accompanying it was greater. That had been stupid, he should've been quicker ... speaking of time ... blasted. Quickly he gathered up the few eggs that were still intact, placed them into the container and then boarded the ship. After securing the container, he started up and took off.

Time was essential, he wasn't sure how long he had been underground and how long he had waited in the fog, but soon the strange weather of this place would prevent the ship from leaving. Get caught in of those freaky storms of magnetic fields up there, and it was all over.

If he had just looked outside, he might have known a few things more for his future, but he never did see that one forgotten egg, lying close to the caught praetorian. It released a pale, miniature facehugger, eager and strong enough for its nearest host.

Neither did he hear that surprised, agonized call that followed.

Not so far off though, a few humans in a tent did hear.

"What was that?" one asked with a shivering voice.

Another joked it off :"Well, the vegetation started mutating and there are plant-frog hybrids of tremendous sizes waiting to eat us."

"Oh how funny. See me laughing? Look at me laughing." said the first.

After a few more minutes of silence and tensed listening, he added : "That wasn't a frog."

"Yeah? Then what? If there were any aliens here, don't you think they would have found us by now? This planet is inhabitable by nature. There's nothing here but veggies and freaky gas explosions. For that part, we are in a childhood nightmare about spinach."

All four of them laughed, trying not to see the empty sleeping bags of their missing friends, and trying not to think about how they couldn't hope for a rescue ship anymore.

Then, they were silent.

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Author's note : rewritten as of 2010-02-10. Got rid of some illogical things, clarified some others.