The First Draft
A thirst for answers and justice prevents Elizabeth from abandoning the last surviving Engineer. But fate has a way of exercising its control.
All the revision in the world will not save a bad first draft: for the architecture of the thing comes, or fails to come, in the first conception, and revision only affects the detail and ornament, alas! –T.E. Lawrence
It was as her back slammed against the wall and fingers as pale as moonlight slipped around her throat that Elizabeth momentarily forgot her fear. Forgot about what had happened to Charlie, forgot why she was on this godforsaken planet, and was at the command of her adrenaline-soaked nerves.
And, she figured out quickly, despite the fact that her mind had long given up hope her body still wanted her to fight. To live.
For what exactly? She wondered briefly, but as her brown eyes met the glistening black of her Engineer she felt an unbridled rage. Screaming at the creature, she threw her fist against the console embedded on the wall.
What happened next seemed to occur in slow motion: the doors to the medical bay slid open, and the monstrous, tentacled creature that had spawned inside her own abdomen lurched forward without the slightest hesitation. The being that had her pinned against the wall was now at the mercy of his people's own weapon.
The one he'd intended to unleash on her home.
She extricated herself from them easily, both creatures too occupied with each other to even notice her squirms. While she had thought the Engineer to be massive, he was at most half of the other alien's body mass. And no doubt that he was probably fully aware of the size difference by now, given the desperate howls that escaped his lips while attempting to escape its grasp.
Elizabeth tried to ignore them as she collected spare oxygen capsules and made for the door. The once-fetus would make short work of the "god", she knew. But after a wave of satisfaction, she felt… guilt? Revulsion? She shook her head and started for the door again, flinching when the Engineer once again cried out.
He wanted your species dead. She reminded herself. He's the reason Janek and everyone else is gone. Even Charlie…
"No," she whispered out loud. David's hand had brought about Charlie's death, not the Engineer's. And Weyland threatened to kill her before the pale humanoid ever did. Why didn't she feel the same hatred towards them?
Coming up blank in a search for her answer, she knelt down and grasped the only weapon she could find: an axe. She wasn't a fighter, and she highly doubted that she could change the fate of the Engineer, but a better plan was stirring in her mind.
Praying that the staples holding her abdomen together would hold, she brought the axe down on the expanse of tentacle just above the Engineers wrist. The monster screeched as its victim then pulled back his arm, ripping the tentacle at the site of injury.
"Catch!" she yelled, tossing him the axe carefully. His reflexes, even under immense strain, were still remarkable. Within the span of several seconds, he caught the axe by its blunt head, allowed its wooden shaft to slide into his fingers, and then buried it deep into the mouth of his assailant.
The monster writhed and hissed in pain, and after four similar blows it finally fell in a heap of foul-smelling tissue and acidic blood.
Breathless, the Engineer fell onto a knee. The axe was still in its hand, its metal edge gradually melting away.
After a minute or so spent recalibrating his overworked senses, he began to look around the cabin frantically before prying open the door of the pod.
In the distance, he could see the woman speeding away on a rover towards the only other structure that wasn't completely obliterated. The burns on his face and torso were testing the limits of his regenerative capacity, expending a great deal of energy in the process, but he could survive the journey that would bring him to clean air.
Especially since it would also lead him to her.
"You gave him a weapon?" the robot asked her incredulously. Or at least he sounded incredulous. Who knew if David was capable of feeling surprised.
"It would have been wrong to leave him to die." She replied as-a-matter-of-factly. "Human beings believe in a fair trial or at least the chance to explain yourself. We don't just murder people on a whim."
Even his synthetic eyes could tell that she was judging him. Quite harshly, he would like to add. He had apologized for his actions towards Dr. Holloway and returned her cross, but something told David that she would never willingly trust him again.
That would have been problematic for him… if they both didn't need each other to survive.
"How did you know he would go after me?" she asked him suddenly, eyebrows rising with suspicion.
"I didn't know." He answered didactically. "I merely calculated that the probability of him surviving the crashing of his ship to be very high, considering the safety measure I noticed while analyzing the design of its cockpit. I knew that the Captain had released the escape pod for Ms. Vickers by listening to their communication lines, and realized that he would seek shelter just as you did."
"So he wasn't after me." She realized. "He just wanted air too."
"He would have killed you in a heartbeat." David countered. "Your people did destroy his ship, and even extraterrestrials do not take kindly to being shot out of the sky."
But he didn't. She argued silently. He could have killed me immediately, but instead he immobilized me.
Elizabeth shook those thoughts away for now. It was not advantageous to her survival to have sympathy towards a murderous alien, even if he actually was confused and not violent by design.
"I found rope and a bag on the rover." She explained to David, showing him her supplies. "I think that if I tie this – "
"Behind you." Interrupted the robot, his tone causing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise.
She spun around immediately, spotting the Engineer several yards away. He was breathing heavily, and she had barely noticed his blistering wound while inside the dimly lit pod. But compared to the glowing white of the rest of his face, the burns were glaringly obvious. And painful.
"Where should I run, David?' she asked desperately under her breath. Though his gaze was locked with hers, the Engineer was not closing the distance any further. That could change very quickly, as he was probably just assessing whether or not she was armed.
"His gate showed no signs of limping or dysfunction, and I'm estimating his top speed is easily triple that of the fastest human alive. And likely orders of magnitude faster than crippled human female." He answered smoothly, eyes twitching as his processors tried to function without a body. "You would likely diminish your chances for diplomacy and only incur further injury to yourself.
"Then what should I do?" she hissed impatiently, stepping backwards as the humanoid began to stride towards them.
"If you speak to him, I will translate." He offered weakly, and she could tell that his calculations were not coming up positive for her.
Elizabeth continued backing away, until her back bumped against the wall. He was only a few yards away now, and closing fast.
"My name is Dr. Elizabeth Shaw." She stated quickly, her mouth going dry with apprehension. "And I've dreamed about meeting you for most of my life."
The Engineer froze as David began to translate, barely an arm's distance from her. He turned to look at the decapitated robot's head, then back to her, speaking a word that had no meaning until she heard David ask, "Why?"
"Because you built us, of course." She stated, somewhat angrily. "I wanted to know why."
After David communicated her words, she saw the Engineer laugh lowly to himself.
"What does he find so funny?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing. David faithfully rephrased this in the Engineer's native tongue, cutting short his amusement and prompting his hand to grasp her shoulder with a strength that was almost painful.
Elizabeth didn't even notice that he'd spoken until David informed, "He says, 'Are you certain?'"
David didn't need to translate her response. The way she stared up at him defiantly spoke to her creator in a language even he seemed to understand. And without another word, he compressed an artery along her neck.
Elizabeth didn't have time to scream before the world went black.