Author's Comments: I realize some didn't like how I ended Alien: Intelligence Theory so 'abruptly': trust me I don't usually end a story on a sad note. Unfortunately it's part of my writing style to write 'short' fiction, with a series of them detailing the story of the character. For the most part they can stand on their own, but the goal is to have all of them be one big story together broken up into parts: kind of like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Thus, here is the second part of No-Tongue's story. I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 1
Long ago he would have seen the silver shape streaking through the dawn sky as a sign of hope, a sign of rescue, but not any more. Now he viewed the shape that he knew to be an escape pod as nothing more then a sigh of trouble. Not long before, when the sun had yet to start rising, he saw a brief flash in the sky. It hadn't been very big nor bright thus causal star gazers probably wouldn't have taken notice, but he had. Years of watching the sky for signs of intrusion, of danger, had honed his sight to pick up any change in the twinkling sky, no matter how slight. It had to have been a large ship, a cruiser even, and this thing had to have been an escape pod fleeing the doomed ship. Now this pod was obviously in trouble as well, for what reason he didn't know nor care, but what he did care about was that this pod was going to crash within a day's walk from the village.
The village. The folk there had saved his life when his own pod crash landed on this planet some twenty years ago. Unfortunately they were a simple folk, with no need or know-how of the technology he needed to call for rescue. He had tried to make his own SOS device back then, but the salvaged equipment proved to be useless, therefore he was trapped on this planet.
With little else to do he thought he would at least do something for the village folk in turn. He had both seen and heard how many of their people got snatched up by the wild predators of the forest and sea and tried to offer ideas on how to prevent it. However they turned down his ideas, basically saying it would cause an unbalance to utilize them and no matter how good an argument he gave, they refused on that reason alone. It just gave him another reason to consider using nothing but faith rather then good logic to be nothing short of idiocy. So he had taken matters into his own hands, hunting down and slaying any predators. He created his own weapons out of the materials around him and what he could barter off the villagers. The villagers eventually discovered his activities and when he refused to stop, they all but banished him from the village, allowing him in only to restock his food and water stores. To him it only confirmed just how stupid they really were.
Therefore he continued to patrol the forest around the village, taking out anything he perceived as dangerous to the villager's well-being and eventually started keeping an eye on the skies as well, knowing danger could come from above as well. Before they threw him out of the village, they told him about a monster that lived on an island out in the sea, a monster that every few decades would awaken and demand 'royalties' form the populous. He had yet to see this 'monster', but when he did he planned to kill it like the other predators. There was a more immediate danger to take care of first however.
After the pod disappeared out of his line of sight due to the canopy, he sprung into action. He didn't know who or what was on that pod that was about to crash within his realm of 'influence', but didn't care either. Whatever is on that pod, provided it survived the crash, will need to be eliminated, so he grabbed his coat, hat, crossbow and a quiver full of darts and took off into the forest in the direction he predicted the pod to finally come to rest.
Roughly two hours after the crash.
His friend was dead.
No matter how much the evidence confirmed this, he still could not believe it. Arthur was the first human to take the chance to get to know one of his kind, to see what was behind the black chitin shell, acid blood, and vicious reputation that his people were known for. This human had educated him in things and ways that no Queen ever could, an experience that likely will never be repeated ever again. It was a chance now likely forever lost to open human eyes to see what a Xenomorph sees, to feel what an Xenomorph feels. Perhaps worse of all was that he was again alone, a forced solitude that threatened to drive him insane as Switcher had gone insane.
The first time he found himself alone like this was when he had been first captured by the humans along with Switcher, an older member of his hive. His mindset was younger then and easier to keep distracted, accepting the puzzles put before him as a game to keep him occupied and he created his own games. Things changed quickly though when he first met Arthur, a human scientist that was determined to learn how to communicate with him. It took a lot of time and effort, but No-Tongue found a way to communicate with Arthur, something Arthur referred to as 'telepathy', and a friendship between them emerged soon after. After some close calls with an insane Switcher and an exploding ship they were able to escape together, but fate had another cruel card to play. This was the result: a crash landing that took Arthur's life and No-Tongue was now trapped on a strange planet...alone.
He didn't know how long he sat there, staring at Arthur's corpse, before he finally tore himself away from the sight and forced himself to leave the pod. It had been a tight squeeze between the hull of the pod and the trunk of the tree it had impaled itself upon, but in short order No-Tongue freed himself from the wreckage and climbed down that massive trunk to the forest floor. For a moment he savored the feel of feeling real ground again, but it was short lived. He had no idea where to go, or what to do now beyond just survive, feeling that's what Arthur would want him to do. So he started wandering the forest, going whichever way he felt he should go, content for now to just be in a natural setting again.
The man sneered silently at the black shape that moved quieter then a cat through the forest, away from the crash site. Of all the things that had to drop out of the sky! An Alien! This was the worse case scenario! Naturally he had heard of such evil creatures back before he got stranded on this planet, only seen them in pictures until now though. Still, he knew enough about them to know how dangerous they were, dangerous to the extreme right down to the very blood they bled. If he was to kill this thing, he needed to do so quickly. As quietly as he could, he aimed his crossbow.
It had taken him a moment to realize something wasn't right: the forest was way too quiet. At first No-Tongue though it was because of his presence in the forest, but a scent, both familiar and unfamiliar, permeated the air: a human. Was it another survivor from the ship?
-Hello?- No-Tongue sent broadly, his hopes rising of having company.
Those hopes faded as quickly as the sudden pain in his left hind leg. With a screech of pain he reached around and yanked out the bolt that had penetrated his hide, his acid blood already melting the metal it was made out of. A quick look around revealed the source of the bolt: a middle aged human. -Stop!- He cried, raising both arms in a gesture of surrender. -I mean no harm!- He was answered by another bolt: fortunately this one skipped off his hide without damaging him. Realizing that this human either hadn't 'heard' him or chose to not believe him, but not willing to fight this human, No-Tongue ran.
