Just a short chapter, sorry all. I really am trying to find the time and inspiration to keep updating, but it's not been easy to come by either lately unfortunately. On the bright side, I think I'll be able to clue this fic up soon and then start on the spin-offs of our fave side ship(s) (or fantasy side ships, for those of you pining for a certain Daddy Pred).
It'd been hours, at least several of them, since Hwynn had last heard signs of others stalking the corridors of the station. At first her nerves had proven unsoothable, forcing her to abandon hiding spot after hiding spot, seeking out further and more obscure nooks in which to cram herself. Each time she crept in search of a new, more secure haven, she was keenly aware of the real possibility of walking straight into a cloaked Yautja. She had no way of knowing how many Hunters were roaming the halls, nor why they'd attacked the blue eyed male. A rival clan seemed most likely. But why converge on the research facility? As far as she was aware, it'd been here for some time and never before been accosted by the aliens. The retinue of security droids had struck her as more than sufficient - right up until it hadn't.
One thing was certain - this wasn't the same facility where her captor had previously been held as a specimen. If it had been, she had no doubt he would have returned and exacted revenge long before the station had had the opportunity to hire her and procure the two new specimens. Vitiligo to the extent he possessed usually took years to present in humans, so she could only assume his captivity had taken place a while ago.
Shifting uneasily in the ventilation duct she'd sealed herself inside, she wondered if he would be satisfied to leave the station without killing her - and felt her guts cramp in response to the idiotic thought he would do anything other than hunt her down. He was a Predator. It was in his very nature, even should he not have harboured a twisted vendetta against her specifically. Her mangled arm was throbbing incessantly, locked to her chest within the tight confines of the duct. She was sweating despite the cool air rushing past.
It was only a matter of time.
Air. Rushing past. Her brain began to percolate the implications of that. The atmospheric recirculation system. If she could reach the command centre of the station, she could shut it off, couldn't she? While the broken remnants of armor the UAA had retrieved along with the cadavers of past specimens seemed to have included a type of integrated respiration capability - or so the UAA had begrudgingly revealed - surely the Yautja would not be able to survive and breathe indefinitely in a vacuum. There were no air tanks incorporated in any of the armor she'd ever seen. They'd suffocate or be forced to retreat back to their ships.
A sharp metallic ping startled her enough to thump her head and shoulder against the air duct a fraction of a second before a plume of white smoke wafted inside, burning her throat the moment she inhaled. Coughing, eyes watering, she lunged forward, crawling further along the duct just as a blade slammed through the access panel she'd used to gain entrance. The proceeding snarl informed her it wasn't the blue eyed Hunter who'd found her, but she hustled through the duct nonetheless to the sharp corner she prayed would take her beyond the reach of the weapon of the Yautja pursuing her. Squeezing her body sideways, she continued to half-crawl, half-shove herself along as fast as she could, heedless of the noise she was making. All that mattered was losing the alien within the station's innards somehow, and she clambered up service ladders and slithered through passages nearly too small to accommodate her frame in order to do so, losing all sense of where she might be.
No sooner had she paused to catch her breath than did a searing light flare only a few feet ahead of her, the resulting blast and wave of heat stunning her senseless momentarily. The ducting abruptly lurched beneath her, dropping downwards at an angle which sent her sprawling forward in an uncoordinated tumble. She dropped from the ruptured tunnel and crashed into something with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs before hitting the ground. Through the tears still blurring her vision she could distinguish a massive figure towering above her. Her ankle protested vehemently when she scrambled backwards and too late she realized she'd lost the laser scalpel in the fall.
The Yautja released a bellow of rage as he raised his wrist blade for the death blow - a guttural expulsion which broke off in a splutter. His mask tilted down sharply and Hwynn's watery gaze followed to the object of his sudden interest. Lodged in his torso, the handle of the laser scalpel protruded, edges of the wound it had created sizzling faintly. He reached for it and ripped the surgical instrument free. Raised his weapon again.
Hot fluid spattered across her face following the arc of her would-be killer's swing, causing an inadvertent gasp. The unmistakable metallic tang of blood on her tongue prompted her closed eyes to fly open. Snarling, the Hunter was already whirling away from her, nothing but a gushing stump remaining where once his taloned hand and extended wrist blade had been. She stupidly glanced to her feet, where the severed limb had fallen, her brain slow to reconcile what was occurring. In the seconds it took for her to look down and then back up, her pursuer managed one step towards whatever had sliced his arm off before his body jerked violently and he toppled forward.
At the opposite end of the corridor, the blue eyed male loomed. One of his mask's white eye slits was smeared with the luminescent blood of his kind, somehow lending his presence an even more sinister aspect. He approached soundlessly, the gore of all those he'd slain coating his armor, and reached for the handle of the weapon embedded in the other Yautja's skull, freeing it with a sharp jolt.
Even had she wanted to obey that primal self-preservation instinct urging her to run, to crawl, to flee, she knew better by now. She knew how futile trying to escape was. That he would find her if she did somehow manage to slip away from him. That he'd take pleasure in tracking her down, in eliciting a prey response in her. She'd never make it to the control room in time to shut down the recirc system. Not now.
"Just do it, then," she heard herself rasp, throat still raw from whatever irritant the other Hunter had deployed.
Hefting the wickedly curved hatchet he'd removed from his adversaries face, he paused before her, forcing her to crane her head at an impossible angle as he silently glowered down.
Hwynn sank back onto the cold metal decking. Her arm throbbed seemingly in time with her frantic heartbeat and it would only worsen as the adrenaline filling her veins petered off. Best to be dead before that happened. She almost laughed at her predicament, but wouldn't succumb to hysterics.
Above her, the male shifted - she imagined preparing to decapitate or eviscerate her. He probably wouldn't allow her a swift death, she figured. It took a moment for the sound to filter through her stupefied senses, but slowly she realized the low and husky rumble was emanating from him. She laid there for a beat, listening to it swell, the discordant gravelly quality of the reverberations a testament to his scarred vocal folds. Hardly daring to believe the hacksaw procedure she'd just performed had truly worked, she pushed herself back up to her elbows and stared at him.
Far from paying her even an ounce of attention, his mask was inclined toward the dead Yautja at his feet. Distantly, a blast erupted. Had he and the others damaged the station in the course of their altercations? Was it being attacked? She watched him crouch, nonplussed by the noise, and access the other Hunter's wrist device, tapping in a few commands. Another explosion sounded, this one causing the deck plating to tremble beneath her, followed rapidly by a third, louder and more forceful.
Hwynn felt her blood freeze in her veins when his head turned towards her once more. Her fingers twitched with the most absurd compulsion to wipe the splatter of green blood from his mask. She knew - implicitly she knew right then, while they regarded one another, he was deciding her fate.