Thank you once again to Blackadder VII for reviewing, and also thanks to everyone who's favourited/alerted this. I'm amazed by just how many people have favourited/alerted this story, especially since I thought it's a rather obscure crossover concept, so thank you very much!

Chapter Fourteen – Possible Solutions

Tevo glanced down at the device in her hands and then back up at him, a little confused. She'd thought it looked like a weapon of some sort, with its wide square muzzle and apparent trigger mechanism, but she doubted that if it was indeed a weapon he would have reacted like that. "Why? What is it?"

"It's a low-mass bioteleport," he explained, getting up off the floor and crossing to her to get a better look at it. "The yautja use them if one of their own ever gets impregnated by a xenomorph. The xenomorph reproduction works by fusing DNA with the host, and if ever yautja and xenomorph DNA was combined then that would be an abomination as far as the yautja are concerned. It happened once, on Earth a long time ago, so they invented these as a precaution to stop it happening again."

"Wait," Tevo said, suddenly realising why it was so brilliant, "So we could use this to get it out of you?"

He nodded, "It's got a remote teleport beam that locks onto anything containing xenomorph DNA. It'll pick out the larva and teleport it into that port dock you've just picked it up from while leaving all other tissues undamaged," he said as he pointed at the shelf behind her, and she glanced at it briefly before looking back to him.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" she said, raising the teleport to point at him, and for a moment he was just so desperate to get it out of him that he went along with it, but then he realised he was rushing into things and put up a hand to stop her.

"No, wait," he said, "Not yet, I need to think."

Tevo lowered the teleport gun and frowned at him. "Do we really have time to think?" she said, wishing they could just get it over with, but then she noticed the worried expression on his face and realised there must be something he wasn't telling her. "Why? Is it dangerous?"

She didn't much like how nervous he looked before he answered. "I don't know. It's only ever been tried on yautja before."

"And what happened to them?" she asked apprehensively.

"Well, of the few I know about, half of them died," he said, and then seeing the look of horror on Tevo's face quickly added, "But Time Lords are pretty tough, I've got a better chance of surviving it than any yautja."

"You mean you could regenerate?" she asked hopefully.

He gave an uncertain shake of his head. "I'm not sure. I'm full of regeneration energy right now but I can't regenerate fully while it's still in me. A lot of the energy's getting used up to fight it off, but if anything goes wrong then I might not have enough left to complete a full regeneration cycle straight away. I'd need time to replenish it."

"And we don't have time," Tevo said grimly. The more they thought about it the more they realised this wasn't going to be quite as straightforward as they'd hoped.

He shut his eyes slowly and then opened them again as he continued to think. "We've left it so long the larva's fully matured by now. There's been time for a lot of its DNA to be absorbed into my bloodstream. You'll have to do the teleport at close range, or the results could be pretty nasty."

She gave a nod, "Alright, anything else?"

"Well, just try and make sure you get all of it. We don't really want any bits of acidic xenomorph getting left behind."

"Making me nervous about all the stuff that could go wrong is not helping."

"Right, sorry," he said, looking first apologetic and then as if he was trying to be reassuring. "In that case, don't worry about it. It's not like we have any other options, so we may as well just get on with it and hope it goes smoothly."

She just continued to stare at him for a few seconds, and then raised the teleport gun to point at him again. "Right, so what do I do with it? Just point it at you and pull the trigger?"

He nodded. "Yep, the beam's already configured to pick out xenomorph DNA so that's pretty much all there is to it."

"Right," she said, positioning the teleport gun so that it was just a couple of inches from his chest. "Ready?"

"Ye…no! Wait!" He took a step back from her and Tevo jumped slightly at his sudden outburst before lowering the gun.

"If you don't want this to go wrong don't bloody do that! I almost pulled the trigger then."

"Sorry," he said, beginning to pace up and down the bunker. "I still need to think. We can't just rush into this; we haven't thought of a way to stop the yautja yet. I don't want to make a move until we've considered all our options."

Tevo stared at him in frustration. Once again she found herself completely unable to understand his thought processes. Why was he letting himself remain in danger now when they could come up with a plan later? "I thought you said we could report them to the galactic police?"

"I know," he responded, still pacing, "But I've been thinking more about that and it's not going to work. The yautja don't like being told what to do. When the humans first tried to stop the yautja hunting them they made a secret deal to send criminals to yautja hunting planets as game, but when they got found out the courts enforced article 36 of the Shadow Proclamation to put a stop to that too. The yautja were not happy. If humans try and use the law against them again it could be enough to start a war, or a war with some of the yautja clans at any rate."

Tevo didn't fully understand what he was talking about but she could definitely grasp how bad a war between humans and yautja would be. "So what's the alternative to reporting them?"

"We have to make it so they can't carry on," he said, with the kind of expression on his face that suggested he was coming up with a plan. "They need the queen to provide the eggs, and then they bring humans here and use them to breed more prey. But if we take away their control of the queen, we take away their control of the xenomorph population. They can't keep breeding prey if they're not in charge of the eggs."

Tevo was beginning to understand, but she didn't like what she thought it meant. "Now if this was my plan I'd be suggesting we try and kill the queen, but you're thinking we should set it free, aren't you?"

He nodded, frowning at her slightly. "Yes, that's my plan, and it's better than yours."

"Because it doesn't involve killing?"

"Well, that and because it's practically impossible to kill a queen xenomorph anyway. Not to mention that even if we did manage it another one of the drones would undergo a sex change to become new queen, so it would be completely pointless."

Her eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, but anyway, back to the point. We need to free the queen to stop the yautja."

Tevo couldn't quite believe what he was suggesting. To her the whole plan just sounded insane. "You've just said it's practically impossible to kill a queen xenomorph and now you're suggesting we should try to free one. How do you propose we do that without getting ourselves killed, exactly?"

From the expression on his face she could tell he was thinking very quickly. "Well, you don't. I could."

"Oh yeah? How?"

He stopped pacing and turned to look at her. "You remember that first xenomorph we encountered in the forest? It looked like it was about to attack me, but then it didn't and went for you instead."

She had a feeling this was all going to make sense, but she needed him to explain it properly to her. "Yeah, I remember it."

"Xenomorphs secrete pheromones that can be detected by other xenomorphs. It didn't attack me because it knew I had a larva in me."

"Well, that didn't stop the other one attacking you later on."

He shook his head dismissively. "There were loads of them around by that point. It couldn't distinguish between me and any of the others. If I'm on my own with the queen it shouldn't try to kill me."

She looked at him with an expression of worried scepticism. "How certain about that are you?"

"Certain enough," he said, and then turned to head towards the door. "Right, best get going then."

"Whoa, wait!" Tevo suddenly said, shocked that this was all happening so quickly. "You mean now?"

He turned to look at her and raised an eyebrow. "Why? Do you think I should wait until it's a more convenient time for the xenomorph?"

She shook her head. "No, it's just that…" she trailed off, realising that actually the sooner they did it the sooner they could get out of here. "In fact, no, you're right. Let's go now."

"Ah," he said, moving to stand in front of her as she tried to get to the door. "It's just me that's going, not you."

She stared up at him in confusion. "What? Why?"

"Well, the queen won't attack me. That doesn't mean I can stop it attacking you if you're in the same room, so you're staying here."

"You're leaving me on my own?" The horror she felt at that prospect was apparent in her voice.

He gave her an apologetic nod, feeling bad that he was going to have to leave her by herself, but there was nothing he could do about it. "You'll be safe here. It's secure against xenomorphs and the chances of a yautja actually needing to use it are practically zero."

"But what if something happens to you? What if you come across more yautja or xenomorphs out while you're out there?"

"Well, I'll just have to run fast, won't I? This place is only two minutes away from where I need to get to; I think I'll be able to make it back."

She still looked far from reassured. "Yes, but what if something does happen to you?"

"It won't," he said, and he thought he sounded much more confident about it than he actually felt. "I promise. Ailyn, I don't want to have to kill any of them if I can help it, but if I can't help it I'll do whatever I have to to stay alive. I'll be back here with you in a matter of minutes, but you have got to stay put."

She gave a frustrated sigh, realising she wasn't going to be able to change his mind. "Alright, fine," she said as he turned to the door to unlock the electric mechanism that kept the sliding bolt on it in place. "But if you're not back in ten minutes…"

"I will be," he said, not giving her chance to finish before he'd opened the door, exited, and then closed it behind him again, leaving her standing among the strange alien equipment and unwelcoming fluorescent lights completely alone.