This is my first story for (I know it's bad form to admit that but I'm proud I've overcome my nerves enough to post here) but it was originally planned to be just a one-shot that spanned a chapter, maybe two. Now though I'm not so sure so I'm just going to follow it where it wants to go. I do have a particular ending in mind that's tragic so please be aware. I chose to rate this chapter as T for mild language and mild gore, I hope that was right. If not please let me know and I'll rate it appropriately. I also hope that a registered beta for this genre/category will like it and might want to team up with me. I have a really hard time translating what's in my head into words, per my profile. All constructive criticism is welcome. I do NOT own or make ANY money from Aliens/Predators - the character Millie though is all mine.
The scene before Millie's eyes was a war zone as she tripped down the drop ramp of the ship, boots finally crushing into the porous lava like rocks of the planet's surface.
The only human, female or otherwise, to ever step foot on this alien terrain she stood rooted in place with heaving breaths and a boulder of dread in the pit of her stomach.
Death and agony were everywhere she looked, panning from left to right. The dense blackness of night on this planet provided very little light besides the murky halo of twin moons.
How was she ever supposed to find Vsil'jk? Panic gripped her with icy talons as her eyes struggled to find his brick walled presence amongst the chaos. Colors were muted and shaded in gray as the clan of Yauts fought against the Xenomorphs. It was impossible to pick out her mates tan and red stripes, his impossibly broad shoulders or impressive height. The fighting probably stretched on for miles. He could be anywhere.
Millie might never find him alive, let alone dead and her heart lurched painfully inside her chest. It was too much to bear. Breaking into a run she kept scanning, colliding with bodies of falling comrades, friends and hard meats alike but she couldn't slow her momentum.
Legs pumping, she twisted her ankles and fell numerous times. Blood poured from her wounds but she didn't feel a thing in her mindless terror. Every downed body was inspected, rolled over. She cracked one of her flares to life in her haphazard slide down into a crater. The light was nonexistent here, the bodies stacking at random on top of each other.
The stirred up dust and debris was so thick that Millie could barely see, her eyes painfully scratchy and watering. She needed to see. The powdery clouds choked at her throat and sludged like cement inside her lungs but she pushed on. She would find him. She had to find him.
In the distance, blasts of Roman candle like lights criss-crossed in the air just over head as those Yauts still standing fired off their plasma cannons. Vivid bursts of blues, whites and yellows.
There were simply too many Xenomorphs. Hundreds, maybe thousands could be seen cresting the rocky dunes in the distance like an angry swarm of locusts before disappearing; bobbing like flotsam in the ocean they rose and fell from view.
Millie was exhausted and overwhelmed as she staggered amongst the entrenched bodies of her mate's clan. Her clan. Glowing green blood was mixed with the ashen soil, casting her already haunting figure in a shroud of filth as she stood, barely, and simply stared. Her reddish brown eyes stark headlights, wide with horror as the tears cleaned thin tracks down her cheeks.
For more than a mile in front of her stretched an endless sea of tangled death and dismemberment. Her flare was fizzling down as it dangled at her side. It was a miracle that she wasn't dead with them already, with her Vsil'jk. There were simply too many bodies to search, the area too vast.
"Vsil'jk," she whispered to no one but herself. "Where are you?"
For an insane moment, Millie closed her eyes and prayed. Prayed for death, prayed for a miracle, prayed to Paya. The great white warrior goddess that was at the center of Yautja belief, fertility and life. In this place, Cetanu reigned as the god of death but Paya couldn't be very far from his shoulder.
What a simple human female could possibly offer an alien goddess, Millie didn't know but she was willing to bargain anything. Her life. Her servitude for an eternity. Her soul.
"Vsil'jk," was her only plea as she felt a hard wind shove suddenly at her back, propelling her forward and her leaden feet to move faster and faster.
She was blind now, her tears falling so fast that she cried out each time she tripped over a body. Her right hand even went straight through the sliced abdomen of a Yaut as she tried to break a fall, her palm cut as it impacted with his vertebrae.
Shaken to her very core, she sucked in air like a beached fish as she slowly pulled free of the sucking muck and held her hand up to the wan light of another plasma blast. Glowing green dripped down her forearm, gore stuck between her outstretched fingers.
This could be Vsil'jk. One of his brothers. One of his friends. Millie was going to be sick. Stomach heaving in a laborious contraction, she emptied herself as carefully as she could. They were dead, their masks emotionless shells, hiding the face of their final moments but she refused to dishonor them with her bile.
After the wrenching spasms eased, she wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand as her eyes landed on the wrist blades of the Yaut she'd literally fallen into. They were fully extended and at least three feet long. The arm skin was black however, not her mates as she'd fleetingly feared.
"Vsil'jk," she moaned. She had no choice. If she was to go on into the thick of the fray ahead she needed a weapon. Before leaving the ship, she'd changed out of her hide loincloth and short tunic to pull on the jeans and tank top that her mate had originally found her in so long ago. It felt so long ago..
The pockets were shallow, unable to hold any of the Yaut weapons except her own. Brass knuckles, pepper spray and a small pocket knife. On Earth, a girl needed to be prepared for anything. A mugger, a rapist. Nothing had prepared her for this.
Gathering her courage and pushing past crushing helplessness, she unmanned the body of its wrist blades before strapping it to her own arm. It wasn't a perfect fit, the harness only adjusting so much, but it would do if she could wield its weight.
For her mate she'd wield a mountain.
Millie pushed to her feet and carried on, still stumbling but her eyes were torn between scanning the bodies and all around for the Xeno. A couple times she'd uncovered a male with her mate's colors, and each time her heart threatened to simply stop. It wasn't him. How many times a woman could die was mind boggling.
Die..
Vsil'jk..
Suddenly a few feet in front of her a Xeno pounced from the inky darkness of a rock face, fully intending on ambushing a Yaut from behind. She knew that behind. The uneven shorn dreads, the large scarred burn mark on his lower back.
"Jm'aal!" She screamed, emptying her lungs to try and warn the medic but it was useless. The noise of raging battle was simply too great, echoing off the craggy spines and cliff faces. He was going to die as the Xeno hissed its victory in advance, readying its whipping tail to impale the warrior.
Vsil'jk..
Millie kept screaming even though her body shook violently from need of oxygen, only this time instead of in warning it was in a blind rage. Charging forward at full speed, she raised her bladed arm and met the surprised Xeno head on. It twisted away from Jm'aal to face her and reared up on its hind legs, inner mouth snapping as it shrieked to echo her battle cry.
She'd never fought a Xeno before, never even seen one up close despite listening in thrall to her mate detail his kills. The way his forest green eyes would light from within. The way his broad and brutal chest would swell with pride as he knocked it with his fist.
Before meeting her, he'd had his mind set on mating with a Blooded female, a warrior in her own right to birth him remarkable sucklings. During her first days on the ship he spoke of little else, even going to so far as to openly court the scarce few who took notice of him despite being a Young Blood.
Millie was always inwardly thrilled that they rejected him, though she hated to know the pain he hid away beneath that primal exterior. Warrior females wanted to hunt, not to nest and breed but her mate couldn't be swayed and Millie knew that had an arrangement actually been made, the female Yaut would've quickly found a convenient way to be rid of her human hanger-on.
In the end, Millie stayed the course. He was hers.
And he would have the Blooded Warrior he always wanted.
Vsil'jk..
The blades arced through the air, cutting it with a whistle as she suddenly spun at the last minute to broadside the serpent. Her aim was good, acidic blood exploded from its gashed ribs and it howled its pain while striking back with a vicious sweep of its tail.
The blow was so hard to Millie's stomach that she sailed through the air and crashed on her back. The prone bodies did little to cushion her fall as all were plated in armor, and she struggled to move, to breathe. Her ribs were on fire and her eyes wouldn't focus but she scrambled to kneel just as the Xeno leapt towards her.
Unable to do little else but brace for impact, she punched her blades straight up and out. Either she'd be crushed, the bones in her arm shattered or melted away from the acidic blood, she fought to stay brave. The Xeno's mouth was open, its adhesive like saliva trailing away in the wind as limbs tucked like a velociraptor were ready to dig in with claws and strength.
Paya must have been listening to her prayers or Cetanu was distracted because the ugly monster never saw the thrust of her blades coming until they broke through the boney exoskeleton of its chest and lodged with shredding vibrations into its black heart.
Unfortunately Millie could do little else to prepare as the aliens massive weight crashed down on top of her. Trying as best she could to flow with the impact like one would catching a football, she dropped her bladed arm down and back as she sprawled beneath its twitching and heaving body with a painful exhale. She wriggled for all she was worth, terrified of having her sternum crushed by the center breastbone ridge of its skeleton which left her in the end hopelessly wedged in between two bodies.
She didn't know what to do! She couldn't think, she could barely breathe as its thrashing death throes continued to mash her down and throttle her bladed arm all the way to the shoulder joint, threatening to pop it out or rip it off entirely. Millie clenched her fists before going limp, trying to stave off more damage. Vaguely she remembered Vsil'jk saying the worst pain and bruising happened when a body tensed from impact rather than relaxing.
Vsil'jk...
Millie couldn't contain her fear, barking a wail of frustration as she screwed her eyes shut and punched upwards to keep a steady pressure on the Xeno above her. So far none of its acidic blood had run down her arm to ruin her and she didn't want to take the chance. It didn't stop thrashing and screeing above her, the blades stayed buried deep and for now had kept the twin wounds sealed. Millie knew her luck would only hold for so long but she was human. She'd never have the strength to leverage its body off of her, not when she was as effectively pinned down as a bug to a board.
She didn't have time for this!
"Die! Die you sonovabitch, die already! Die!" Barely recognizing her own voice let alone that she was speaking, Millie jack hammered her bladed arm with what little room she had to rapidly stab into the Xeno's chest as quick and hard as she could, tearing up its insides and forcing an ear piercing wail from its elongated head.
The acid flowed freely now, showing as a sickening murky green color in the fading cannon blasts beyond. Almost instantly her bladed gauntlet started to smoke and hiss, droplets flinging on to the fallen bodies bracketing her on either side. The smell was horrific, even worse in close quarters without the aid of the planets gusting winds or the raucous downdrafts from clan ships over head.
She couldn't die like this! She was a Blooded Warrior now!
The chemical reaction from the Xeno's burning blood was emitting a lot of heat, enough to redden and blister her skin without ever having to touch her directly. Time was of the essence.
Forcing her trembling muscles to move, she grunted and pushed up as hard as she possibly could with the blades still imbedded and her free hand on its throat. It felt like an impossible weight, a dead weight now that the creature had finally fallen silent and still, its large drooped head blanketing her in darkness and stench.
Millie's entire body burned and throbbed from exertion yet all she'd succeeded in doing was lifting the body a few scant inches. This was stupid! Vsil'jk would never find her if she stayed buried under the alien and she'd never find him if she couldn't escape!
Torn between crying for help and simply crying, if she'd ever really stopped since running off the ship impulsively, Millie sagged back against the unforgiving ground and let her body go slack. The bodies on either side of her were thankfully keeping most of the Xeno's weight off, and the blades were buried in the left side of its chest instead of directly above her. She was never the best student in high school or college but surely there had to be some kind of benefit from their current positioning if only she could think!
Unfortunately the images and memories that assaulted her had nothing to do with her current predicament nor did they hold any secret meaning she could glean that would help. Unbidden, she remembered the day her father died in the hospital; how his tall frame was so long for the adjustable bed that the soles of his bare feet were plastered uncomfortably against the foot board when he wasn't writhing mindlessly in pain, kicking out at it with hard slams and knocks that had broken a couple toes.
John Peter Miles III was always such a big man, a police officer turned coal miner when the department had budget issues that required lay offs and cut backs. In the sleepy little town of McCoy, West Virginia coal mining was their economies backbone and everyone was required to participate, no matter how staunchly some residents like her father tried to rebel and defect into other avenues of work. In the end it had claimed him too when the fear of no income and the need to keep food on the table became too great. Millie's father was eventually diagnosed with Black Lung for his trouble and subsequently passed away in a lot of pain despite his continual IV doses of morphine, oblivious to his surroundings and those loved ones circling his bed dying along with him.
Millie distinctly remembered standing by his bedside when she was on the cusp of turning eighteen, graduating high school and secure in the knowledge that she'd be starting college next fall with a full softball scholarship and it was all thanks to the deteriorating deity like figure in the bed before her. His breathing ragged and wheezy, his arms curled up against his chest with hands swiveling at the wrists because he couldn't lie still. It just wasn't fair that a six foot four, two hundred-twenty pound man should be lying there as a shadow of his former self, down to a hundred-thirty pounds of clammy and pale pasty white skin and smelling strongly of death at just thirty-six years old. He didn't even have hair anymore from the last round of failed chemo except a thinning gray ring that ran from above one dumbo like ear to the other around the back.
It was so haunting to Millie, the injustice and helplessness of it all that instead of her suffering father she was the one who had to grab the plastic banana puke bowl off the table not once but twice. She'd never felt so weak and small in her entire life.
Was that why she was thinking of her father now, trapped prone and helpless beneath the weight of the dead Xeno? She was sure she sported the same sunken in cheeks and shadowed eyes that he had in his final moments. That she could finally, for once in her life, understand the full indignity of having a body that just wasn't strong enough to do what you wanted it to do when you needed it the most. Her father had a family to protect and support and Millie, Millie had a mate who needed her. Of course Vsil'jk would never admit that in a million years, he'd rather die than ask for help and despite the circumstances Millie felt herself smiling through her exhaustion and tears for the first time since her mate had proudly and excitedly descending the drop ramp to join the epic battle still swirling and blasting around her.
She'd watched him go with sweaty palms, anxiety in her stomach bordering on nausea and a deafening roar of blood in her ears yet she'd heard him clear as day as he stood tall and majestic before her. He'd gripped her shoulder gently and shook, then gave a casual 'silly ooman' toss of his dreadlocks and proclaimed in a throaty rattle: "M-di H'dlak", no fear.
Vsil'jk...
Millie could never get him to understand that for humans, to love is to fear. She'd feared her mothers drunken rages, feared her fathers illness, feared every year that she'd blow her shoulder during a game that was reigned by her calm and cool composure from the pitchers mound and punctuated by her times up at bat.
Feared that her mate still didn't understand and never would what love truly was. She still wasn't sure that his kind could even love, let alone know what it was to be loved when they encountered it. It had become Millie's personal mission in life to shower him with it through actions and words but still she feared.
Yet he doesn't fear the kainde amedha, her tired mind whispered. He passed his Chiva with flying colors and he left you safely on the ship with strict orders to stay aboard and stay safe but you're never safe without him. Millie whimpered in her throat and clenched her gritty eyes closed, willing the lecture to stop but it continued, undaunted by her efforts. Your father taught you to hit the stars every time you swung the bat and to show every batter who's boss when you're at the mound. You're not pitching now, you're batting. Swing for the stars, pige - short for 'pigeon' - swing for the stars. She could hear her father's voice, a soothing tenor that used to sing Christmas songs no matter what month it was yet now in the recesses of her mind it was hard and firm, determined.
In that instant, she knew what she had to do.