AUTHOR'S NOTE: See Author's Notes at the end.

Cthinde was amused by the warrior's panicked response. He was obviously not used to being bested by other, superior hunters. His comrade had fallen easily enough, and Cthinde stood still for a moment, hot with the glory of the Hunt. He lived for this excitement, the moment when he cut a human from this world with nothing more than his own strength and cunning. It thrilled him in a way nothing else did, and he felt totally, completely alive. It had almost been too easy, he reflected solemnly as he watched the human's eyes darken.

The other warrior had hollered at him, cursing him no doubt, and the rifle was raised. Cthinde loved it when they used guns; it was all they knew, and when the bullets were deflected by his armor, they were helpless. He advanced toward the human, listening to its small voice stretch thin with fear and anger. It did indeed fire bullets at him, and he jerked as the bullets hit his chest, but the armor was designed to turn them aside. He was almost on him now, towering over the short soldier. He clenched his fist, advancing his ki'cti-pa out to a striking distance.

The butt of the gun in his solar plexus was unexpected. He coughed, doubling over, and the human's knee connected with his jaw, sending him sprawling on the floor. He was dazed for a moment, and then a heavy weight sat on his chest and refused to move.

xXx

Carlotta was shaken by the bulletproof alien, but not deterred. The shimmer in the air like heat was visible even in the low light of the corridors. The shimmer was roughly the size of Elliot, a man she had taken down in spars plenty of times, so she aimed for what she hoped was his stomach with the butt of her gun and then rammed her knee into what she hoped was a face. Whatever it was, it liked to use edged weapons- if it wanted close quarters, she'd give it close quarters.

When it fell, she sat on top of it, feeling for the arms and pressing her feet down on top of them, and resting her gun's muzzle right at its face. "You think you can dodge this, baby?" Her foot flexed to get a better purchase, and the creature underneath her suddenly took form, writhing with electricity.

It was, in a word, male. She was seated on top of rippling pectorals, though they were strangely colored, a kind of reptile-yellow, although she didn't see any scales. Her way of immobilizing his arms was looking more and more inadequate; the thick lengths she pressed her feet into were his wrists; his arms were about as big around as her thigh. His neck was encircled by a protective collar that looked like some kind of mechanical seal; instead of hoping the bullet might go through it, she pushed the hard metal end of her pulse rifle against the unprotected underside of his jaw.

The huge creature beneath her breathed once, and she lifted with his chest. A set of clicks and chitters began to roll out, and she pressed the muzzle deeper into the soft flesh under his mask. "Shut up." The clicks stopped abruptly, and then her own panicked voice filled her ears. "There's something else in here-" and then it stopped.

"What?" She stared at him and he clicked quietly again, slowly using his chin to motion to Carlotta's left. A long sleek head with silvery teeth was materializing out of the low light, creeping quietly toward them, slavering jaws slicking the floor with saliva.

"Good call, Rambo," she said quietly. With an easy motion, she rocked herself off his chest as slow as she could manage. What would happen when the big guy was unrestrained was something she could only guess at, but she hoped he would focus on the new threat and leave her alone.

The bug seemed to sense that its element of surprise was gone, and it hissed before springing toward her. The creature that killed Sam was on its feet the instant she was clear, snapping his legs and back in the air, letting the momentum bring him to his feet. He spun to face the xeno, and took it on hand-to-hand. Carlotta stared, awestruck as the powerfully built creature twisted the xenomorph in his grasp, throwing it to the ground. The black beast spat and snarled, but twin serrated blades separated the front of its head from the back, and the sulphur-yellow insides slopped out, smoking as they dissolved away the floor. Carlotta realized with a start that the acid that was burning into the floor was not consuming the blades on his arm; the edges were as gleaming and sharp as they had been before entering the bug's carapace. "What the hell are you?" she said out loud.

He heard her speak and turned to face her, his mask's cruel lines more visible now, the dark visor an unblinking stare. He twisted his wrist, slinging some of the acid blood off onto the floor; it sizzled on the thinly-carpeted concrete. He advanced on her, and the strangeness of his costume, his size, the claws on his hands- this was no colonist, not even close. Humanoid though he was, he was alien.

A movement behind him; she raised her pulse rifle. "Move it, Rambo!" The yell startled him, and he jerked to the side as the pulse rifle whined bullets. Carlotta's xenomorph training hung in the back of her mind: Aim for the legs, then go for the kill. Immobilize and eliminate.

The bug flipped in the air as bullets blew its legs off the rest of its body; Rambo recovered from his surprise quickly, but when he finally acted, the bug's knees were somewhere far behind it, and all he had to do was cut the head off as he had done with the earlier scout. Taking heads was the only way to make sure they were dead, and she was sure that whatever this thing was, he was used to bugs. He moved like he knew them better than they knew themselves.

And just what the fuck are you doing, Carlotta? He's a fucking alien. Gun 'im down! All her Marine training urged her to waste Rambo, but she stopped herself. This guy was enormous, and the more she looked at him, the more she realized that her little show of sitting on his chest was nothing. He'd let her think she had the upper hand. He could have removed her at any time, tossed her aside like a rag doll, but he hadn't. If he'd been respectful enough to not cut her down on top of him, the least she could do was not shoot him in the back. She lowered the rifle, and stepped forward.

"What the fuck are you that you can take on bugs without weapons?"

The answer was an alarming burst of speed; the blades were out, and she was right in the way. A strong arm wrapped around her waist and curled her out of the way of a piston-tongue aimed at her head. Rambo lifted one enormous leg and planted his foot directly in the chest of the other alien, kicking the xenomorph back nearly ten feet. His foot came down, a heavy crash, and he spread his arms wide, fingers splayed as he faced the recovering bug, a monstrous roar issuing from his throat. It was a deadly challenge, a display of power, and Carlotta found herself simply overwhelmed, frozen in place as the monsters faced off.

xXx

Cthinde was aware on some level that he had just saved the human warrior. It was born of haste, an ill-considered act that he would have to deal with after this bug. It appeared to be the last of the hive's scouting party, but one could never be sure. He could almost handle kainde amedha without weapons entirely. But their numbers were unclear, and prudence required he keep at least his blades with him; it would be foolish to go to all the effort of hunting a human soldier, only to be unable to collect the trophy. Cthinde and the bug began to circle each other. The battle pressed in on Cthinde's vision, dulling his hearing, until there was nothing left but the Hard Meat and himself. The rush of blood in his temples drowned all thoughts of the surviving human, demanding his focus on the dark beast in front of him; it hissed and spat, and he chattered his eagerness to close the fight in reply. He flexed his wrist, rolling it and making ready to strike.

The kainde amedha's sleek head swayed back and forth to an unknown beat, and it changed its focus; Cthinde saw the shift. He growled. The human was an easier target, and the drone knew on some level that the humans were excitable. Perhaps it planned to sacrifice itself for some bullet-ridden acid spray, but there was no telling what went on in the mind of a drone and the Queen which controlled it. This was HIS prey, dammit, drone or no! Actually, Cthinde no longer even took the skulls of drones, but it was the principle of the thing, or so he told himself.

He tackled the bug even as it lunged at the human, and it screamed at him, the sinews of its jaw stretching open and exposing the ridged piston tongue. It shot forward; he neatly jerked his head out of the way, pushing the alien's long head back with his extended reach. Silvery teeth gnashed, and the thick fingers curled around his wrist, squeezing with surprising strength. The mouth-tongue hissed and shot out again but Cthinde grabbed it mid-fire, snarling at the alien and holding it captive. It keened at him as his grip tightened- he felt the acid blood pulsing against his palm. The fever of battle burned in his veins, and as the alien's working jaws covered his visor in spittle, Cthinde wrenched the tongue out, twisting the flesh and ripping it from the back of the kainde amedha's throat.

Its cries of pain and rage made even Cthinde's skin prickle, and it thrashed, spraying its stinking blood into the air. Cthinde cursed under his breath, pinning the alien and doing his best to avoid the deadly spray. It gurgled and smoked under his heavy hand as he lifted his ki'cti-pa to strike the killing blow, plunging his pair of serrated blades into the head and cutting as cleanly as he could. The Hard Meat stilled, and only when he had completely separated the head from the body did he climb off the body and look for his other kill.

What he found, to his surprise, was the muzzle of a human rifle pointed directly at his head. He froze, and then trilled softly in appreciation for his new situation. The human's armor had come off, and a quick scan found it discarded a few feet away, heavily pocked with acid burns. Crumpled next to it was the human's grey uniform top, just as blood-eaten. His attention could not be held elsewhere for long, however; the human was rather more interesting under that uniform than he had expected.

"It's a female," he said out loud, sounding surprised.

"What did you expect?" Bagthak stepped forward from a way down the corridor, remaining cloaked. "Surely her voice tipped you off."

Cthinde shook his head, which earned him a jerk of the rifle and he stilled. The human's gun remained focused on Cthinde, but she barked a warning to the alien voice, gesturing with the barrel at Cthinde.

"I think she means to kill me, Bagthak," Cthinde said wryly.

"I think she does," came the reply. "Your plan?"

"Disarm her, I suppose," Cthinde chattered. He hooked his ankle around hers, jerking quickly, and chuckling at her yelp as she landed on her rear. The gun, to his dismay, didn't fall from her grasp, but the moment was enough for him to gain the upper hand. He crouched over her, straddling her as she had him, his blades out and at her throat. She quieted almost immediately, and he took the calm in hand, using it to inspect this fighting human female.

His attention was drawn first to her breasts; she was generously gifted in this respect, and the thin white tank top, sole survivor of an alien bloodbath, was doing its best to provide some measure of modesty— and failing miserably. His knees tucked neatly against her sides, holding her steady should she decide to fight. She muttered what was doubtless a curse, and looked up at him with rage-filled eyes that might have caused lesser beings to shiver. Her skin was a delightful nutty color, a pleasant cream-brown that he associated with the females of his own species.

Her skull and features were beautiful by human standards; this made them perhaps uglier to the yautja crouched over her. But Cthinde found something in her face while she was underneath him, something that dug at him until he shook his head to clear the thoughts that wandered before his eyes unbidden.

She didn't resist when he tugged the rifle out of her dirty hand and shoved it across the hall. Another, more vile human curse left her mouth and he chuckled. "You're lucky I'm in such a good mood, human," he said, standing.

Bagthak was dumbfounded at Cthinde's good humor, but it was only when Cthinde stepped over to take his trophy from the other soldier that he realized the reason for Cthinde's mercy; it was to skin and trophy her comrade in front of her. He was no one to judge the methods of a Leader, but this was perhaps too much. Cthinde made a hole in the human's back and began to cut away the flesh and ribs, pulling the spinal column free. Even before it was half-done, the female was sick on the floor, heaving whatever passed for human food out onto the acid-pitted carpet. He felt a touch of pity for the female; their roles in life were different from those of the yautja, and to see a comrade dismembered must have been difficult at best.

"Why not kill her, Cthinde?" he said quietly, the sound hollow in the otherwise deserted corridor.

"Her?" Cthinde looked up from his bloody business with a shrug. "Look at her. A little blood and she's sick all over the place." He turned back to peeling the male's scalp free from the skull. "That's no challenge."

Bagthak stepped forward to where the human was resting on the floor, still feeling ill-at-ease. There was nothing he could do for her, of course, with Cthinde right there. Putting her down with a cannon shot after her humiliating retching seemed dishonorable. He looked down at her, and when she looked back at him, he was surprised and gentled by the fiery emotion he saw in her eyes.

xXx

Carlotta lay weakly on the floor, trying not to look at the limp pile of flesh and organs that used to be her teammate. She felt clammy, and when another heave threatened, she let it come, because she had no strength to resist it.

The alien was making quick work of Sam, cutting and pulling with horrible cracking and squelching noises. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was somewhere else for just a moment, before a step near her temple keyed up her soldier's response. She opened one eye and looked up.

His large calves and thigh muscles were smeared with pointillist stripes, dark brown brushstrokes over a cream-colored canvas. He had a half-skirt over one hip, and a pair of plated metal tassets. Those look largely ornamental; they wouldn't guard against anything. A similarly plated codpiece loomed over her, and she chuckled darkly to herself. That, however, looks like it's barely doing the job. A part of her mind, untouched by the gruesome horror in the corner, ventured a joke. These guys pack some serious heat.

The other humanoid growled some sort of strange phrase, but the tall, quiet one didn't reply. Instead, he knelt, and Carlotta felt his strange rough hand on her temple, brushing her hair away from her face. She jerked away, rolling away from him and leaning up on her elbow. She weakly got to her feet, ignoring the alien's proffered hand. She reached into her boot and pulled out her bayonet. They were never used with the rifles anymore, but the cruel knives were still issued out of habit. After all, a knife could change your position in almost any situation, and their usefulness was not to be underestimated. She wiped the spittle off her chin with the back of her hand and sized up her targets.

They were huge, enormous, even. The other one had stopped his skinning, but only for a moment, and the crouched one was eerily still. They watched her, a pair of bizarre, otherworldly bookends.

"I'm sure I'm the hottest piece of vomit-covered ass you've ever seen," she said, trying to work up some of her Marine training, some of the balls-to-the-wall gusto that she had in spades before the attack.

"But I'm a Hellcat," and her voice found its strength in anticipating the motto that she and her teammates had said together so many times. She saw Sam's limp torso, his ribs sticking out of his skin like the wings of some bloody eagle. Hot tears clouded her vision and then she gritted her teeth and blinked them back, for Sam, for Gilly, for every last goddamn Marine on this rock. Carlotta transferred the knife to her right hand, and yelled at them,

"I'm a Hellcat, from Harper's Hellcats, and this is as far as you're going to get!"

xXx

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm not dead. Really. You can IM me or email me any time. Also, check out the Predaphiles Network (google it!); I hang out there quite often (instead of writing) and you'll probably find me about most evenings.

I have also managed to procure a laptop, so I will be able to procrastinate even MORE effectively than before!