Four and a half years later….
Scar sat at the controls of the shuttle and stared gloomily out over the endless vista of space, spattered with uncountable stars. He was bored, bored and depressed. Already he had cleaned, primed and sharpened every weapon in his considerable arsenal. He had checked and rechecked the ship's running systems. In the absence of any other useful activity, he fell to brooding. Now there was nothing to do except wait and even though he'd learned to be good at waiting the time seemed to ooze by so slowly he could hardly stand it.
"I have endured longer periods of forced inactivity," He told himself "The many times I was locked in the brig or crippled in the infirmary were worse than this. At least now I know that I could end this if I so chose." His jaws curled up unhappily "Of course, so choosing would have consequences..."
The consequences would be more severe than he cared to imagine. In fact, the situation was becoming desperate. He knew the shuttle was in a poor state of repair, both the air recycling unit and the engine would need parts replacing any day now. The power storage cells were virtually burned out, if he did not find an enemy ship soon to attack and plunder, things would start to look very bleak indeed. He needed another craft he could cannibalize for spare parts. Though it would hopefully make it back to the planetoid, his ship would very likely cease to function shortly thereafter. It would certainly not be able to take off again unless he could carry out some urgent repairs.
"Then what?" He thought "I shall be stranded on that pointless rock; stuck waiting around on the off chance some ship will land there!"
Things were not made any better by the fact that presently his food supply on board the shuttle was going to run out, then he would have to return to the planetoid whether his mission was successful or not.
He rose to his feet, jigging up and down restlessly, trying to shake out some of the tension in his limbs. After such a long period of inertia he felt agitated – a crackling mass of frustrated energy. He stretched to his full height, extending his talons, trying to wriggle more comfortably into the tight black spacesuit he was wearing. Even at full stretch, he was still not able to quite touch the roof of the craft. It had, after all, been built to accommodate yautja larger than him. He and Lex had stolen it off his own clan, the Rough Skulls, who had themselves originally stolen it from a rival clan – the Bad Bloods.
Lex… his eye was drawn to the medi-pod and he stood lost in thought for a moment. He remembered how small and fragile she'd looked lying inside it; the tubes running from her, the dark pits under her eyes, the way her face had started to look hollow and thin towards the end. How their son Selim cried for his mother, his screams echoing around the cockpit so long and so loud Scar had felt like he would go insane.
The large metal sarcophagus now stood dark and empty.
"It is no use thinking of Lex and Selim," He told himself "They are not here and there is no sense in dwelling on it. It just serves to make me melancholy. I need to concentrate on the task in front of me."
At that moment the shuttle's radar chirruped, making him spin round. "A ship!" He crossed to the console and tapped a control "Even better; a Bad Blood ship, which means compatible parts. And they are all alone," He purred to himself "How convenient!"
Pressing the button that engaged the shuttles weapons he switched to silent running and waited patiently, knowing that the ships superior camouflage capability would keep him hidden from the enemy until it was too late. Even though their own cloak was engaged, his instruments could still zero in on their heat signal easily. It was clearly an old model unit, even though they had originally stolen the superior devices from the Bad Bloods "I guess they have not managed to upgrade all their shuttles yet, I wonder if our little skirmish against them has anything to do with that!" He thought with some satisfaction, remembering how he and the rest of the Rough Skull squad had destroyed the Bad Bloods base of operations on Hirai.
Everyone on that squad was long dead now "Not that I mourn them… excepting Rika of course."
He held off until they were almost on him. As they came comfortably within his range he opened fire, targeting the engines. He wasn't happy at having to do it this way – the engines were one of the parts of the ship that he hoped to salvage – but he had to disable them quickly, before they realised what was going on. His own crafts display flashed a warning as the sensors detected the enemy ship's targeting system trying to lock onto his location. He needed to move.
He fired up the engines and the craft shot forward, screaming past the Bad Blood ship. Scar pulled it around in a tight curve and swung round back on the offensive, zeroing in on their cooling system this time. He fired again and grinned to himself to see a small explosion. It didn't look like much with no atmosphere but he knew that if he could see it from here it must be pretty bad. With any luck that explosion would be a lot worse inside the shuttle where there was oxygen to burn.
His complacency had been premature. As he sped past them again, a burst of plasma came from the Bad Blood vessel and struck his right hand engine a glancing blow. The ship lurched to one side and the green warning light began to flash on the console.
He cursed and brought the shuttle around, bearing down on them "Clearly they need a little more subduing!"
He fired on them again and this time he must have scored a direct hit; the enemy shuttle's engine burners flickered and died. The ship lost momentum and began to drift, floating aimlessly through the clouds of glimmering vapour.
Scar didn't waste any time. As soon as he saw the ship's lights go dark he flipped on the autopilot and pulled on the long black space helmet, fastening his plasma sidearm into a holster on his leg where it would be easily accessible.
In truth, this was not Scar's first foray into piracy. He'd done this so many times now he felt he'd got it down to a fine art, and the superior camouflage made it almost too easy. Normally he found this an enjoyable diversion – it was good enough sport picking off rival clan ships, enough of a challenge to keep him entertained – but for some reason, today he was filled with an odd sort of foreboding.
"The damage to the right engine is just a minor setback," He told himself "The important thing is to get the parts I need and get out before my air processor and the engines stop working – then I will be comprehensively fucked."
He hefted the giant grappling gun and stepped into the airlock. Despite everything, he could not stop himself from grinning as he anchored himself to the side of the ship "No matter how many times I do it," He thought "I still enjoy using this weapon more than any other. I suppose I must have a weakness for big projectiles."
He fired at the other ship and when he saw the magnetic grapple attach itself to the hull; he waited until the chain pulled taught. When it became apparent that the grapple could take the strain he began to pull himself across. He felt the seductive surge of excitement sweeping through him as he reached the other ship. Switching on the magnetism in his boots he climbed across to the airlock, pulling out another one of his favourite toys; a limpet mine. Not about to waste time cutting through the hull, he activated the mine, slapped it onto the airlock and retreated as quickly as he could.
From outside the ship the explosion was only a disappointing fizzle in the vacuum of space, but it was followed by the gale of out rushing air that he knew must mean the lock had definitely been breached.
When all the air had gone, he crawled along the surface of the shuttle reaching tentatively around the ragged edge of the hole the explosive had made. Pulling himself into the cockpit he took a look around. The chaos in here reassured him; the crew had to be dead. The shuttle was filled with clouds of floating debris, shards of glass and chunks of twisted metal hung here and there, twirling slowly in the airless space of the cabin.
Avoiding the largest fragments he made his way to the back of the cockpit where he knew the air processing unit was located. There was one Bad Blood, huge, suited but with no helmet, strapped into the pilot seat. Another suited and with its helmet on hung there limply in the eerie stillness, as if floating underwater. Both seemed lifeless. A quick check around the rest of the ship revealed no other inhabitants. It took him a matter of minutes to disconnect the power cells and recycling unit and remove them from their housing. Strapping the cells in place across his back he slipped through the hatch and pulled himself across the gap between the two ships. Unfortunately it would take two trips to get everything he needed – the power cells and the recyc unit were too big for him to be able to take them both across in one go. Of course without gravity they weren't heavy but they were unwieldy and he needed his hands free to manoeuvre.
He deposited the power cells in his own shuttle and went back again, pulling himself along hand over hand as fast as he could. For some reason his mood was still dark and getting darker, blacker than the huge void of space that surrounded him – lit as it was by glittering stars and iridescent gas. He felt as if clouds of choking vapour were pressing in on him from all sides and he couldn't understand why. Even the thrill of defeating an enemy – usually a reliable antidote for any negative tremor of emotion – had not served to chase his unease away.
As he entered the ruined airlock again he grabbed hold of the recyc unit, now intent on completing this raid and getting himself out of here as quickly as possible. He'd shoved it under the console to keep it from floating away and had to wrestle a bit to get it out from under there.
As he finally pulled the unit free he suddenly caught sight of motion in his peripheral vision. His head whipped round to see the helmeted figure was moving. Before he could even process what he was seeing pure instinct had bypassed his conscious mind and mainlined a huge jolt of adrenaline into his veins, hot wiring him into action. He dropped the unit and snatched his sidearm from its holster, hurling himself to one side as he did so. The barrel of his own plasma cannon felt like it was coming up in slow motion. He watched in horror as the leech's gun rose towards his chest.
There was a burst of blinding hot whiteness…
The hunter had been stalking his prey all through the afternoon, but now the light was fading and he was beginning to tire of the pursuit. He was observing the child now from a vantage point in the lower level of the jungle canopy. A small target but at least he seemed to be armed. That was good.
He watched as the boy ran around the clearing pretending to shoot at things; frogs, insects, birds. The weapon in the little hand he recognised as a thing rather vulgarly called a 'bug thumper'. It was a thick, black, metal-tipped stick about two feet long with a rubber grip at the end. It looked like a small, thin club but in actual fact it was capable of delivering a sizeable electrical shock if discharged whilst in contact with a living thing. It was intended to be used as a controlling device for the hard meat. The kainde amedhe used electro-magnetic frequencies to navigate, to sense other life forms. Hitting them with a sizeable dose of electricity incapacitated them, temporarily scrambling their brains. A big enough jolt could paralyse them, turn their limbs to jelly and cause them to collapse, but the device was adjustable depending on your purpose. It could shock the hard meat just enough to pacify them or prod them in the right direction if you were trying to herd them, to capture them alive or stun them cold if you just wanted to transport them quickly or kill them.
To a yautja it could cause serious inconvenience.
He noticed that the boy had not yet used the weapon during his games so it would be fully charged and ready to fire. At least this little one will be able to offer some sort of token resistance, he told himself.
The boy's mother might have presented more of a challenge but she was too distracted to have perceived the threat. He had followed them through the jungle and all the way back here to their ship without their knowledge. Now she was engrossed in some mechanical repair work and had been so occupied for several units. Her firearm lay nearby… but not near enough. If he attacked it was too distant for her to be able to reach it in time.
She also had not noticed that the boy's wanderings were currently taking him further and further away from her, closer to the tree line, making him vulnerable.
He stood up decisively amidst the concealing greenery of the branches. He had been biding his time but now he decided it was time to bring this to a close. Camouflaged as he was, he knew it was very unlikely that either of them would see him before it was too late.
Stealthily he began to advance on his targets, moving through the lower canopy so that no snapping twig or rustling leaf litter would betray his presence. When he reached the edge of the clearing he dropped silently to the ground.
He knew his landing had made no noise but some sixth sense must have warned the boy. He drew closer to his mother, the wide orbit of his play shrinking to bring him much nearer to where she knelt, puzzling over a piece of machinery. As the hunter advanced, she sat back from her work and pushed her long dark hair out of her eyes with one grimy hand. He paused for a moment, watching her closely to see if the movement betrayed an awareness of his presence but she quickly bent back to her task, oblivious.
The child now crouched on the forest floor, a short way behind her. He was still fiddling with the bug thumper, using the weapon to push bits of leaf litter around on the ground, forming them into little piles.
Prowling towards them, he was now within arm's reach of his marks "This," He told himself disappointedly "Is going to be much too easy!"
Then, as he tensed to spring, the little boy suddenly leapt to his feet and pointed the bug thumper right at him "I know you're there!" He yelled "Get away from my Mother!"
The hunter froze; the metal tip was actually touching his chest! He pulled up short and braced for the impact but the boy did not activate the weapon.
He deactivated his cloaking device wondering if the child might be intimidated into dropping the shocker. To his credit, the boy stood his ground but he did not discharge the bug stick. What was he waiting for?
At the same time the woman's head turned and she froze as she saw him too. Now she realised this was not part of her son's game… only now it was much too late for her to reach the gun.
He waited for a few seconds, the tip of the thumper still resting against his skin. When no current came he lashed out, smacking it easily out of the boy's grasp and sending it flying across the clearing and into the ferns. In another easy movement he backhanded the child, knocking him to the floor.
Immediately the woman was on her feet.
"Alright Scar," She said "That's enough!"
Lex put herself between Scar and the boy, arms folded as she stared up at him "What are you trying to do, knock the poor kid unconscious?" She said icily.
"In the name of the bitch goddess female, I barely touched him!" Scar said dismissively, pulling his mask off "Selim would not be… damaged by such a little tap, would you… Mei'Sika?" {translation: 'My male offspring/ My son'}
"No Mother, look I am alright!" Selim {pronounced: Sell-LEEM} got up hastily and smiled, really wanting to placate both his parents. "See?"
She looked in his eyes and smoothed a bit of leaf litter from his brow, slightly mollified that he appeared to be unhurt.
At just over four and a half years old he was already taller and bigger than most human children his age and she knew now that he would never be able to pass as human. The older he got, the more the characteristics of his father's species were becoming dominant in his face; it was getting broader, his brows much more scaly and jagged. The tusks jutting from his chin on either side of his jaw were longer. Two more tusks had now emerged (in a process every bit as painful as teething) from under his skin either side of his top lip. Additionally he sported a mane of short pointed spikes and a mouth full of sharp white teeth, which gave him a vampiric look when his pouty, childish lips parted in a grin as they were doing now.
His eyes were his most arresting feature. Scar's eyes were the same vivid yellow colour and the same feline shape but something in his expression gave them a diabolical, fiendish appearance. In Selim's face the same eyes were still inhuman but innocent, huge and luminous; quite beautiful.
"You see, he is unhurt!" Scar said "He has my thick skull."
Lex ignored this "You seem okay," She said to Selim, still enraged with his father "But that's not the point! If you have to play stalking games, you have got to be more careful." This last was directed at Scar, who bristled angrily.
"Game?!" He growled at her "This is not a game; I am trying to teach him something important." He fixed his son with a baleful glare "Selim! You had me dead cold! You were doing well and then…what? You did not use the weapon!"
"Lucky for you!" Lex said behind him.
"Shut up!" Scar replied irritably. He turned back to the boy "And so? Explain."
"I do not know…" Selim mumbled and looked at the ground for a moment.
"Mei'Sika, what happened? Did you lose your nerve?" His father persisted "Do not tell me you do not know because I do not believe you."
"Well…." Selim twisted and squirmed under his fathers' scrutiny "I was worried I might hurt you Daddy."
"Selim, I have told you before not to call me by this human pet name. It is disrespectful."
"I just forgot!" Selim said, rather sulkily. English had been the first language of his babyhood as it was his mother's primary language and sometimes when he was upset he fell into it.
"You forgot, what?"
"I forgot, Mei'Savir." {translation: 'Sire/ Father'}
"Remember next time!" His father said sharply, then he sighed "Selim I have explained this to you. That puny bug zapper cannot seriously injure me! I only gave it to you to practise with. If you are threatened by an adult male you cannot afford to hesitate. You must strike as soon as you have the opportunity! Another yauta would have killed both you and your mother by now."
"Not if I had anything to do with it." She said, glaring at him.
"Do not confuse him." Scar replied in English, then reverting to his own language, he turned back to the child "Nevertheless, you did well… up to a point. But you let me get much too close to you. I could easily have got a grip or used my blades on you."
"I was waiting for you to get near enough to use the thumper!" Selim protested.
"So you should have used it!" Scar snarled, and his son looked at the floor again, biting his lower lip.
"Well, it's getting late so here endeth the lesson." Lex brushed her oily hands on her knees "Let's put all these engine parts back on board. It's nearly dark so I don't think I'm going to get any further with my own lesson today."
"Still trying to work out how to fix the right hand turbine?" Scar regarded her with mild amusement "Why do you not let me do it?"
"Because I want to learn how to do it myself."
"That is going to take too long!" He protested "We have already been here seven days – we need the engine back up and running."
Lex hoisted one of the huge engine turbine blades up onto her shoulders "Well, we can't all be as wonderful at everything as you, can we?" She retorted, in caustic tones "Selim, inside now!" And she strode off towards their ship, the Chameleon – the name she had chosen because of its superior camouflage ability. Their son followed her obediently.
Scar clicked to himself in exasperation as he watched them go. He knew her much too well by now to think that would be the last he'd hear of it.