Alpha Dog: Chapter 1-Altered Perceptions
There was a hive nearby. With earth nearly abandoned only a few thousand humans inhabited each continent where they had once been numbered in the billions. For those who remained, like she did there was no reason to follow those billions out into space. Why should they? These were the people who favored an existence very close to nature and cared for the wounded body of the world that still supported them like any really good mother. So when they found a hive of the Alien beings called Xenomorphs near their settlement they did not call for help and they did not band together for the purpose of hunting and extermination the 'menace.'
Instead the six people who lived in this region of the country gathered together their trade goods and anything that aliens who did not wear clothes or use tools might need, mostly food, and the approached the hive. She was in the lead. She held no weapons. Just a sack of fruit and a haunch of deer meat.
"Jessica are you sure this is a wise idea?"
"Yes William it is a wise idea. After all they could have hundreds of them by now and we are six people. Better to make friends then be a main course."
Jessica...Jessica is it?
Yes that's me? Who asks?
The perception she received was not a word or even a set of words but a set of feelings and perceptions of the individual being. It translated loosely as being an Alpha male. He was royal guard to the hive's Queen. He was fierce but decent and also careful of those who were not as strong as he was. Although She knew better she was sure her companions thought that weak hive members would have been killed and tossed if not killed and eaten for food. This thought gained her a mental chuckle and a attitude that translated as of course not, but that humans would think this does not surprise me any.
Sorry.
The Alpha male finally came out of the tree line and with him were three Beta males and one genderless Xeno. It was weaker then the others, so weak that it had not taken on any gender characteristics at all. Yet it was fun loving and viewed with affection by all in the hive.
You would rather 'trade' peacefully,then fight and end up being food or hosts for our young. That is wisdom. This path of thoughts will lead you to a long life. That you convinced the others proves your worth as leader and chief of your small band. We will trade with you though at present we have little other then preserved hides.
The trade went smoothly. Jessica knew it would. Once the Queen had decided and the Alpha male knew her orders, they would be enforced to the letter by him and his subordinates. She had negotiated carefully despite a subtle nerve level instinct of danger. This would fade if the 'dangerous' beings proved themselves to not be so over several meetings.
Carrying her share of the hides back towards her small residence in the hillside, Jessica sighed. It weighed in at about six times the fruit's weight. These hides had to come from buffalo or feral cattle of some kind. Deer hide was much thinner then what they had tanned and traded with. She was happy with it though. Her feet ached with the need for new footwear, and as it was nearly halfway to winter, an oiled set of boots was what the doctor ordered.
She had just finished making a pair and left them to dry so the oils would absorb into the leather and water proof it, when knock came at the door. It was Thomas MacGillecuttie.
"Our new trading partners may be in trouble. Yautja hunters just arrived."
"I'll go warn them. You stall for time any way that you can think of. Invite them to dinner if you have to. I'll give you my next deer kill or at least enough to replace what you use from your stash. As for me I'm gone now. Be back later."
Jessica ran fast as she could run as soon as she was in the scrub trees on the other side of her home hill.
She had cleared halfway to the trading point when she sensed that 'Alpha maleness,' coming her way. She skidded to a stop in a thick pile of last years leaves. He dropped from the trees and searched the area for predators that would be worth her fear. She fought hard to calm her mind then just let the recent memory of the conversation with Thomas surface in her mind.
We will hide ourselves away. You may come too if it displeases you to be in their company.
"I don't like them no, and if any of them are psychic I am an open book as I am sure you have noticed."
It has come to my attention. One who normally has no secrets has no need of defenses to hide them behind.
Jessica was not a very secretive or private person at all. Normally everyone who came to know her came to know her completely within hours of having met her. The telepathy by which the Xenomorphs communicated simply shortened the process to about an hour total.
She joined the Xenomorphs in their hive. The walls of hardened secretions and the scents were somewhat strange, but she felt no threatening nature from the Xeno population or her companion. They walked down and around the twisty ways, their route finally led to the Queen's chamber.
Awe was the only feeling for a minute. Very little could equal the Xenomorph Queen in size and not a thing on earth could be as destructive when angered. She was pretty angry was the Alpha male's queen, yet her loud voice was polite in Jessica's head as she greeted her.
"Thank you great mother for letting me stay for a visit while enemies lurk on the threshold."
You are certainly welcome trader child.
Jessica sat between the forelimbs of The Alpha male and quietly conversed on the topic of food preservation for an hour. The Queen and her chief protector and strategist were very interested in canning processes. They knew about glass and metal, having been brought to this planet inside a variety of 'jar' a few generations prior to the present one.
"Would you like to put up some food for winter like that? I can get the jars to get started for you. Gathering fruit, edible plants and vegetables would be on you guys though. That and I would need a helper for carrying if I went to town for the jars. I count on my own for food most winters so I need to be careful of my own stock of jars and lids."
I would be able to arrange a room of 'shelves' to store them in My Queen.
You will be going with her as well as that other one and the precious one. That should be enough help to carry back both what she needs for her own winter food storage and our hive's items.
One Xeno appeared from a side tunnel that Jessica had not yet encountered. It wasn't a member of the earlier trading group, and she had not seen this one in the tunnels on their way to the Queen's chamber. This was no Beta though or lesser being. In point of fact she would say that the Queen favored this one just a touch more, though she trusted the first Alpha Male Jessica had met with getting things done more then she did her favorite male.
Jessica threw that idea and her amusement at it behind the wall where she kept her more disturbing memories of bad things that had happened to her. She had learned to keep those more contained then the other things in her wide open brain, more for the safety of those who could read them then any reason to hide them away. This might offend so she put it back there to keep it out of the public mind they had running around here.
Having not caught her thoughts the new male only saw a small female person respected by his queen and thus thought a little preening and strutting was in order. He was impressive. She would still trust the first Alpha more though, and her respect for the Queen's wisdom grew a bit more.
The Alpha Dog as she had been thinking of him and the Alpha Bird she had just met, who reminded her more of a peacock then anything else, followed along with the little genderless Omega as they left the next morning. The skilled oratory that Thomas had possessed had driven off their foes for more fertile grounds.
This was the northwestern part of what had been the United States. The East coast boasted the largest of the four hives she knew about on the Planet Earth, and she had told Thomas of that hive once. She had not told him of what they had done for her but of them at any case. The stories had convinced Thomas that Trading with eyeless beings who ran around on all fours and could very well eat you was still all right.
He had given them a better target. Then as soon as they had left he had used the nearly defunct satellite phone to call to the place where Jessica and her cousin Melina had once lived. Warning given and much bigger and better prepared hive set to fight the foe, Jessica and her three companions were able to leave in safety for the nearby town.
People did do double takes. Town had about three hundred people in it and enough functional roads leading to and from it to have goods she could use like the canning jars and the lids and sealing rings. That she was walking around unafraid with Xenomorphs shocked some. News had spread of what had happened to the rapist back East though and some just nodded like it made sense.
Finally she had what she wanted for her hides and other items, including the one blanket she had made that she could spare. It had been very well received. It was going to get cold this year and everyone would be glad of extra layers no matter how badly constructed. But when Jessica had it in her mind to make something she did not make something poor quality or ill made.
She had received a bag of dried fruit of kinds that did not grow this far north and a few packs of socks as well as a ten pound bag of rice and a five pound one of flour for her blanket. It had been worth it from using so much wool yarn, and the trader she negotiated with had known it. On top of it was even a new pack of wool yarns to start yet another blanket, or perhaps a sweater.
The walk back was calm and serene, despite taking the full three days that she had thought it would require. They had gotten there with only one overnight but laden with goods they would take longer to get back. They went very slowly, mostly because Jessica was worried about Little Omega having a hard time with it's foot. It was nearly dark on the third day since they left town that they reached her house. Despite little Omega's sore foot they had made it without breaking a single one of the wicked fragile glass jars.
Alpha Bird went back to the hive right away with the news of their return. Alpha Dog and Little Omega stayed over to let Omega sleep some and rest it's foot. Omega was asleep in Jessica's guestroom, an occasional peep or hiss indicating it was already dreaming. It had taken the floor though and left the bed to be lounged on by it's superior in the Hive.
"I should oil your feet Alpha Dog. Otherwise they could get like Omega's and I don't want any cracked feet bleeding acid on my floors."
she got an impression of weariness across her mind and an approval for her to treat his feet as she had asked all at once. The oil she used on her own feet and hair and pretty much everything was made by a woman with a great deal of herbal knowledge up at the mountain retreat settlement where about another twenty people lived. It had been a rich person's spa resort prior to the mass abandonment of their planet. The lady had learned her knowledge from twelve generations of women in her family and made the best oils and creams for the skin that she could find now a days that were safe, not artificial, and there for fully sustainable.
She allowed Alpha Dog a sniff or two at the bottle before she dropped some onto his left hind foot and began rubbing it in carefully. The funny noise startled her out of her intense focus on his foot massage. It wasn't purring. The vocal cords of a Xenomorph were set up wrong to purr, but crooning? Yeah it was a crooning noise. It brought back pleasant memories that she had locked away for a long time because they were so close to all the rotten awful memories she kept locked away all the time. They came out all in a rush and Jessica was weeping by the time she had finished the front right foot and thus the last of Alpha Dog's feet.
Gentle nuzzles and ghostly mental touches brought her head up and she realized she had been crying for perhaps a whole hour.
Why?
"A long long time ago that wasn't really all that long ago I was a little girl who's parents had died of being sick from some virus or other. I don't really know what it was mind you because I was too little to know things like that back then. When I woke up their bodies were cold and stiff and they were not going to wake up. I knew that much. I packed my things and my clothes and some of their things I wanted to keep then I lit my childhood home on fire and left there because I wanted them to have a good funeral but I was not strong enough to dig holes in the ground for their dead selves.
After a little while wandering I found I was way to close to the great Eastern hive to be able to find a lot of people like me. I found this out because Xephyr found me. Xephyr is like Alpha Bird and you in one person because he is the favorite for the Queen of the East and her most trusted person for doing things also. Back then I knew that anything that wasn't human was very likely to kill or eat me so I tried to run. However I was a stupid kid and did not drop my bag of things to get away and Xephyr took me down easily.
He took me back to the Queen. She read my whole sad story like an open book as it always has been and commanded me to stay and be of the hive.
Back then I did not worry about what was going to happen to me nor was I afraid any longer. The will of the Queen of the East was that I become both Hive and Human, that I could act as go between and negotiator and know no fear of either race. It isn't so and after what occurred I hate the race of my birth with all my might. Though you might be curious further, I will not burden you with those thoughts or those painful recollections."
You went forth and they hurt you as they are oh so fond of hurting each other. One who was raised as one of us would have no armor against such hurts. We love all who are of our hive and hate none who are not.
Jessica knew that it was true. She had walked unprepared into the world of the humans, trusting and kind by nature she had been nothing but prey for the evil men who dwelt among her former kind. Her horror at what had happened made her quake for a bit, then she managed to slowly begin stuffing the dark times back down in their bottle where they could not hurt her any more.
It will be better eventually. You should find a mate. Humans are meant to have one mate per female...
"Nope."
Why?
"That was what I didn't share. Why would I ever allow them to do willingly the thing they forced on me? That would be just plain weak and stupid besides."
Apologies. I did not know that was the way they chose to hurt you.
"That's because I don't talk about it and rarely do I ever let myself remember that it happened. Otherwise it takes me over way to much and those freaks do not deserve the memories let alone that much control over the life I live today."
Stay with me/us tonight. Though it is not your hive it is a piece of a hive, and that is better then none.
"I will probably sleep better if I do. I will go get my blanket."
Alpha dog asked her how she had slept among the others in the hive of the East. She shrugged and said that normally one of the others would twine a tail around her knees and another grip her upper arm around the meaty part to keep her from wandering in her sleep if the nightmares came.
I will do so. Rest now displaced little sister.
And for the first time in many years Jessica did exactly that.
(A/n: 3016 words before the authors note, all from a dream. I have been having many story dreams lately. My muses need to stop eating three day old pizza before bed especially since they don't share anything but the after effects! In any case this is Chapter one of part one of the Alpha Dog Chronicles. Hope You Enjoy!)