Note: This chapter may contain incongruities with yautja methods of interstellar travel. Because I have not seen all the Predator movies, nor read any of the franchise's comics or books, I have no idea whether there is information to be had on this topic. It's possible that yautja use suspended animation on long voyages; but to include that would damage my story arc, so I've dug my toes in and am sticking with what I know. I hope the more hard-core Predator fans out there can forgive this oversight; I will try not to make many.

My understanding of how tachyons work comes from a half-forgotten college astronomy class. Reference to Planck length as a possibility for faster-than-light travel is derived straight from Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" series. It is my fond hope that anyone who reads this and has a better grasp of quantum theory than my own extremely rickety one will correct what are probably many wild inaccuracies about the predator ship's drive. Not that this is an important locus of the story; I just get nervous when I step beyond my own knowledge.

Thank you all for the thoughtful and surprisingly positive reviews. I hope you look forward to reading each addition as much as I do to your comments; that would be awesome indeed.


Chapter 9 – Conditioning

It wasn't worth it. Sometimes you just had to pick your battles and cut your losses. The hunters had nothing if not a sense of purpose, however much it might fail to make sense to Siaran. No doubt this unsanctioned downsizing of her wardrobe had its own place in some mysterious, alien master plan. Besides, she thought with a yawn as she crawled onto the bed, she was too sore and tired to track down Rune and try to make him understand how rude it was to take someone else's stuff without asking.

She slept like a rock, curled among all the material possessions that remained to her. When she awoke, a routine began that kept her occupied during the long interstellar voyage.

It was hard at first, but not in all the ways she expected. First, there was the matter of filling her belly. Siaran had to do a lot of talking and gesticulating to convince the hunters that she needed to eat several times a day. Apparently their normal eating pattern was to gorge every two or three days, so she ended up taking most of her meals alone. She figured the diet of red meat would soon begin to pall; but in the meantime, there was nothing better for building lean muscle. And she needed a lot of that.

Her primary function aboard the vessel became training, both by her own design and the hunters' mandates. There was no real day or night on board, just alternating cycles of red-blue dimness and total darkness. Most of the time Siaran spent awake involved either eating or training. Each time she ate, she consumed thousands of calories to make up for the increased demands she was placing on her body. The training was a punishing series of drills and sparring designed, she often repeated to herself with a wry smile, to make her faster, stronger, and meaner.

Often at the end of a day cycle, she climbed into her tank of fluid with her shins and forearms a mass of knotted bumps from repeated impact, livid bruises forming on her thighs, upper arms, and torso. Sometimes she bled; long superficial gashes from a hunter's claws, and then her blood mixing with the lemony effervescent liquid stained her bath orange. Every time she woke, she had to hobble around the room for a few minutes, easing stiff and abused muscles until she could move properly.

At first, the increased duration and effort of combat training session were pure hell, and she feared her lesser bone and muscle structure would not stand up to the abuse; as far as she could tell, the hunters gave her no breaks for being smaller, lighter, weaker, or a different species. But she was more resilient than she'd known. To some degree, her body was already used to such treatment; years of martial arts combined with the genetic blessing of quick recovery allowed Siaran to endure, and eventually to thrive on, the higher physical tempo the predators' training required.

The learning and training blunted her from the worst effects of the isolation rendered by the communications gap and culture barrier. And any spare time she might have used to wonder about the larger purpose of all this training was soon consumed by a more immediate worry.

Jackal.

Soon after that first humbling match with Rune and Siaran's discovery of her missing effects, the hunters had gathered in what seemed to be a trophy room and divided themselves into four groups. Siaran had circled the room during this process, feeling slightly out of place and not really useful. She was fascinated, and a little appalled, by the collection of skulls, spinal columns, weapons, and artifacts arrayed on shelves and looming out from the walls. Some of these were so distorted they were unrecognizable; some had undeniably and disturbingly once belonged to humans.

So mesmerized was she by what had to be a thirteenth-century katana, a samurai weapon, that she nearly shrieked when Rune laid a large, clawed hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. Siaran darted out of his grasp, retreated across the middle of the floor, and rammed straight into another hunter. Steel-band arms encircled and held her before she could turn to apologize. The hunter squeezed so hard that she tensed her ab muscles against that awful grip for fear her ribs would crack. Long tubelike braids fell around her head as the hunter behind her lowered his head beside hers, opened his mandibles wide, and grazed her cheek with the long tusks.

Breath puffed on her cheek, hot and sickly with the stench of raw meat. A growl rumbled in his chest, vibrating against her back, then became the trademark rattling laughter. Stretching his mandibles wider, the hunter bit into the flesh above Siaran's cheekbone, drawing pinpricks of blood. She stood absolutely still, eyes enormous and dark with fear, fixed on Rune through the curtain of the other hunter's hair. Rune met her gaze impassively, then flexed his fingers in a dismissive gesture.

Abruptly, the other hunter let go, shoving her away none too gently with a snort of derision. Siaran whirled, hands open and ready, to face him. He was taller than Rune but not so deeply chested, with longer braids ornamented with colored beads and tiny bones, as well as the metallic bangles Rune wore in his own locks. No more or less ugly than any of the others, her antagonist had a cocky, pugnacious stance that Siaran recognized at once. She backed away from him.

Again, Rune stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. The rest of the warriors were watching them alertly. He growled at them; Siaran thought she heard a placating note, almost a purr, in his voice. With a sharper rapid click, Rune kept his hold on her shoulder and pulled her closer to the big hunter who'd grabbed her. She stiffened, but to her surprise Rune clasped her antagonist's shoulder with his other hand, then gave them both a brief shake.

Only then did Siaran realize that all the groups were comprised of three members each, and that she had been included, perhaps to keep the groups balanced. In any large group of social animals, there tended to be one individual who enjoyed persecuting any perceived weakness in the others. A jerk, an unrelenting asshole, a bully. It was just Siaran's luck that she was now part of such an individual's group. She glared at Rune, dismayed and furious at having this thrust upon her, but the hunter ignored her silent accusation.

She nicknamed the bully Jackal right then, because his breath smelled like carrion and because a jackal's slinking, thieving ways were right up his alley. A pattern grew in the next few hours of that first day that became a regular function so strict it was almost law. Each group trained on an independent schedule, rotating the training hall so that it was almost always in use by one of the four teams. Except for the irregular feeding-frenzy meals, the hunters spent their time exclusively with their group mates: training, fighting, learning each other's strengths and weaknesses and exploiting and adapting those so that the three members of the group began to function as a cohesive hunting force more effectively than any one of them could alone.

Siaran understood what was supposed to happen. Trust and brotherhood and guarding each other's backs; the structure of an effective military combat unit. At some point, she guessed, each team of three would be sent out on some dangerous hunt or objective. The best chances of success lay in their ability to work together and a deep knowledge of how the other two members of one's group fought and reasoned.

If that were so, then Siaran's group was dysfunctional. She mistrusted Jackal from the start, and he in turn treated her with the sort of superior contempt a bully has for an outsider or a weakling. Siaran began gradually to understand his motivations through his actions, but nothing she could do convinced Jackal that she was anything but a weak member of a lesser species, little more than an animal. A curiosity to be tampered with until it broke. Proud and stubborn, Siaran refused to submit to his constant hounding, and that made her predicament worse. Rune either did not notice or chose to ignore the conflict between Siaran and Jackal. While Siaran was painfully aware of her status as low man on the totem pole, there was no discernible seniority between her teammates. Jackal was probably older, to judge by the broader head with its more pronounced bony protrusions and longer hair. But Rune had the more even temperament, which logically made him the better leader.

Unable to communicate in any sophisticated way, she didn't understand the goal of team training, and did her best to follow Rune's heavy-handed instruction to the letter, hoping she would learn more along the way, and also not mess up badly enough to incur any more of Jackal's wrath than she had to. She practiced moving without a sound, and crept along through the ship's corridor for what felt like hours, learning to blending into shadows, quieting her breath so that she could not hear its whisper even in a silent room. She practiced climbing fast, relying on momentum to propel her to the top of structures without stopping, eyes sweeping ahead to spot and avoid a potential weak hold.

And always, there was sparring. Siaran, whose style had always been to keep her opponents at bay with her longer reach and then overpower them by virtue of superior height and strength, suddenly found the tables turned; the hunters used those exact same advantages against her. It was a struggle, both mentally and physically, to break out of the methodology that had served her so well for so long. Many times over, she found herself silently thanking her masters and instructors, who had told her through all her years of training to be humble enough to discard without hesitation any technique that didn't work, and flexible enough to learn a new one the way a beginner learns: quickly and without prejudice.

Rune pushed her, showing no mercy when she revealed weakness. From him, Siaran learned greater balance and patience. He was a master of sacrifice, absorbing a kick or punch to some non-vital part of his anatomy in order to get close enough to deliver the coup de grace. "You'd make a good chess player," she often told Rune as she lay panting on the mat after he had once again borne the brunt of her attack and overpowered her. When she said that, Rune would put his head to the side, and the small movement, so reminiscent of a human gesture, would bring with it a welcome rush of warm familiarity.

She began almost to look forward to sparring Rune; he was tough but fair, and she learned quickly that he would push her failure only to a point, then give her a chance to recover and try again. She learned faster that way, avoided serious injury, and retained her natural buoyancy of spirit. The latter was maybe the most important; Rune seemed to know that repeated failure in the face of overwhelming odds might have led Siaran to cease trying. He was by instinct or experience a good teacher, and encouraged her in little ways. Sometimes he imitated the taunting "come hither" motion she'd used on him during their first match; the sight of his talons waggling at her always made her grin. Or he would toss his head at her, setting the magnificent crown of long braids into waterfall motion. But he'd do it after she'd land a particularly effective technique, which was incongruent with what she was sure was a gesture of self-importance. Gradually, she realized he was teasing her, and she began to respond. Stupid things, usually, schoolyard taunts: "That move was as ugly as your face, Rune," or "Dude, my grandmother can move faster than that." He'd click and rattle at her, laughing, and if Siaran didn't laugh with him, at least she smiled.

Those were the bright points of her difficult days. Jackal delighted in making her life wretched. Whatever respect he had shown her along with the other hunters on her first day aboard, after her form demonstration, had either been feigned or forgotten. Walking along the corridors to any given destination, Jackal would shoulder her painfully into doors or fall behind to yank her hair. Kid stuff, bully stuff, most of it. But it got worse. When he could catch her alone, he'd pin her to the wall and lower his face close to hers, sniffing and growling, flaring his mandibles in distaste. Sometimes he'd drag his talons obscenely across her breasts or belly before letting her go, all the while making a dry, rattling laugh that sounded lewd and sinister. She hated his laugh.

When they sparred, Jackal would wear her down, catch her, throw her, and pin her on her belly so fast she couldn't recover. Then, with a knee in her lower back, he would yank her head back and slide sharp black claws across her taut throat, rumbling menacingly. More often than not, he pricked beads of blood from her skin.

Once, early on, Jackal caught her foot mid-kick and flipped her hard onto her back, coming down to straddle her. He slid a hand between her legs and leaned over her, roaring in her face and twisting his head from side to side, mocking her powerlessness. Siaran knew, with the age-old knowledge of the primitive hindbrain, that there was nothing sexual in Jackal's display; it was a gesture of male contempt, brutal and full of hate. She glared back with an equal measure of hate, and hit him from the shoulder with the heel of her hand, dead between the eyes.

She woke up in a heap against the far wall, with a tennis-ball-sized lump over her right temple. Rune was standing over her. When he saw she was conscious, he pulled her to her feet. Then, without a flicker of apology or pity, he set her to blocking the revolving target, its thick wooden arms raised to swipe at her head.

Their antagonism was palpable. One day, after managing to kick out of a submission hold and bound to her feet, Siaran watched Jackal approach with snarling face and flexed claws, and said conversationally, "You know, Jackal, the more you fuck with me, the more I want to outlast you." He attacked with such fury she wondered if he'd understood her words.

To survive, she turned the whole thing into a game. However Jackal might hate it, Siaran was part of his team. She did not appeal to Rune, who did not seem to share Siaran's belief that Jackal would kill her without a thought if it took his fancy. In fact, she took from Rune the iron patience he displayed in training her, and set it against Jackal. She watched every move the big hunter made as carefully as if her life depended on it—which it might. She worked out how to avoid many of the snares he set for her. He devised new ones. He hurt her; she healed. She learned. The game was not to let Jackal's insolent disregard destroy her, and Siaran played in earnest.

The days went on. When she fought Jackal, it was always about evasion and subtle retaliation; saving her skin and doing her best to get in a jab before he flung her inevitably to the mat. When she fought Rune, she used speed and flexibility against his more honest strength, losing just as certainly but enjoying herself more. When Rune and Jackal fought, it was a thing of majesty and terror. They slammed each other against walls and slashed each other's flesh with clawed toes and fingers, leaving them dripping iridescent green. She could never tell who won.

Their cuts always healed cleanly; Siaran had never seen a trace of scar on either of them, save for the tribal mark on their foreheads and a few puckered areas that were clearly from much deeper, older wounds. By contrast, her own hide was always marred with scabs and bruises, half-healed and reopened. The astringent fluid in the tank was a wonderful restorative and became her new best friend.

She also washed her diminished wardrobe in the tank before she slept, scrubbing water and a kind of pasty soap through the fabric, rinsing it clean, then hanging it over the edge to dry in the jets of hot air. Her days were so regimented that she thought she knew the reason her belongings had been taken: an attempt to strip her to what was essential. The tank suit as base layer, running clothes as insulation, and the do bohk as a sort of military uniform. That was it. She did wish Rune—she was convinced he was the one who'd taken her things, as no other hunter had ever been in her quarters as far as she knew—had consulted her first, though. She really missed her damn underwear.

Days passed, unknown hours controlled by the dim-up and dim-down of the lights. The cycles lengthened, grew into weeks. Siaran, already lean, lost weight. Her reaction times came down dramatically as her strength and speed increased, until she moved almost with the speed of reflex, without thought. Although she didn't know it, her bone density also increased, keeping pace with the growth of muscle and the repeated impacts of larger, stronger bodies against her frame. All she knew was that she could jump higher, run faster, and hit and kick harder than she'd ever thought she could. And, modesty aside, that was saying a lot. She'd already been world-class by Tae Kwon Do standards. What she was becoming kind of scared her sometimes.

Except for the sleep cycle, she was never alone. Rune and Jackal were constantly with her. They watched her when she ate; Rune in silence, Jackal restless and clicking and disapproving. She grew into the habit of waking before the lights came up, dressing quickly, and making her way to the training hall to meditate and stretch before her teammates came along to inflict the day's lessons and bruises. These quiet sessions became precious to her. During the few minutes of meditation, she could empty her mind of fear and worry, forget pain and uncertainty and loss. She would sit cross-legged and let go of all she had left behind and all she was heading toward, and simply be. It refreshed and strengthened her; it kept her in touch with herself, something that became increasingly vital, just as she'd suspected it would.

Sometimes she was taken to conferences where all eleven predators would click and bark and growl in their complex vocabulary. Comparing notes, Siaran imagined; getting ready for whatever lay ahead. These conferences were always held in the control room, and at first, Siaran amused herself by comparing the incredible view of space beyond the screen to the holographic projections of their progress and destination.

During one of the first such meetings, the stars went out. It was not long after they'd left Earth; maybe three or four days, by the light-dark cycle. Siaran felt the change in pitch of the ship's engines before she heard it, a peculiar buzz deep in her cochleae. She rubbed her ears, then yawned as if to equalize pressure, and the sound became audible. A winding-up sort of whine as the throb increased to a staccato so rapid it finally smoothed into one long, smooth, streaming pulse of sound. Wide-eyed, Siaran glanced at the hunters. They had paused in their conversations but, far from seeming alarmed, appeared only to be waiting patiently.

A flare of light from the forward screen distracted Siaran from the engine howl. She blinked, saw the light from the stars elongate into flares tipped at one end with a dot of red and at the other with a long blaze of blue. Then they winked out, leaving nothing to see but black. At the same time, there was a muffled-explosion sound from the engines and she felt a moment of bizarre pressure, as if something was squeezing her from the inside, constricting everything into one singular point just below her navel.

Then it was over. The throb of engines resumed, albeit with a different pitch. Siaran wriggled, but the brief internal pressure was gone. The viewport remained empty. Unconcerned, the hunters resumed their huddle.

The disappearance of the stars was standard procedure for the hunters, even if it astounded their human guest. Traveling just below the speed of light, the ship had taken four days to escape the gravitational pull of Earth's solar system. Free of the constant of gravity and all the problems it causes for quantum-mechanical operations, the ship could now ramp up the tachyon-producing engines that accelerated it, and all within it, safely past the speed of light. Utilizing technology grasped only on a theoretical basis by humans as the Planck-length scale, the predator ship now cruised at a rate more definable by time than by measurable speed, counting out to precise thousands the seconds to her destination, deep in the wilderness of the Orion Spur.

The energies produced by the ship's drive were akin to the terrible pressures of a black hole, which shreds matter and compresses light to the point that it becomes discontinuous with space and time. Without the protection of the quantum shields that permeated the ship, the slight pressure Siaran had experienced would have rent her to atoms, along with her eleven companions.

In the blissful ignorance possessed by all creatures of the moment, what Siaran feared most at the moment of FTL acceleration was her next encounter with Jackal. When the stars went out, she blinked and looked over at the holographic displays, which were as steady as ever. The only thing different was that all the stars had phased to blue.