Hunter, Prey
By Sapphire
Disclaimer in part 1
Chapter 2 – Close EncounterHunter had been too focused on the spacecraft of his quarry to pay much attention to his surroundings. So he hadn't noticed the arrival of the two humans before it was too late.
He had arrived almost two days after the other alien had crash-landed on the planet. As he had had to make sure his quarry hadn't decided to hide on one of the other planets of this solar system, he had lost a lot of time, time he now sorely missed.
After he had submerged his own ship under the waves of this planet's ocean, it hadn't taken long to locate the other ship and also to discover that the ship wasn't occupied anymore. Leaving his own craft, he swam over to the other ship to investigate, knowing all the time that he had come too late, that his prey was long gone.
To the unaided eyes, the alien looked a lot like a lump of more or less transparent gelatine. Weighing less than four pounds, nobody on this planet would give him a second look, or believe even for a moment that he could be an intelligent being.
His race had co-developed on a far away planet at the same time as a humanoid race. Early on in their development, the Aviads, as they called themselves, had discovered that they were able to form a symbiosis with the Razons, as the humanoid race was called, by blending with them. While the Razons provided muscle power, the Aviads were able to control the immune system of their hosts in such a way that illness became a virtual unknown and even most injuries could easily be fixed from the inside, drastically prolonging the life of the host. All the time however, they still remained two separate races, keeping their own identity. In fact, over fifty percent of the Aviads and eighty percent of the Razons never blended in their life.
Over the millennia, they developed laws to govern their life together, the highest law being that no Aviad ever intentionally hurt his Razon partner. When the Aviads and the Razons finally stepped off their own planet and went to explore the universe, the Aviads found that their ability to blend and live inside another being was not limited to the Razons, provided that the host had enough body mass to support the needs of the symbiont. This had caused some problems in the beginning, as many races abhorred the thought that another intelligent being was able to live virtually undetectable inside another body and possibly control it.
If not for the high moral standards of the Aviads, they might have had good reasons for that fear.
However, even in the most perfect race – and if there was one weakness the Aviads had, it was their belief that they were pretty much perfect – there were bound to be some who didn't uphold their strict laws.
The occupant of the ship the alien visitor had been investigating was one of them. He had forced a blending with a host and had tried to manipulate that host to do what he wanted him to do. After his crime had been discovered, he had been extracted from his host. But before he could have been put on trial, he had managed to escape and stole an interstellar ship, heading to the most remote sector of the galaxy imaginable.
His hunter had tracked him over thousands of light years to finally pick up his trail in this out of the way solar system. Only to lose his trail once again.
If the hunter had been prone to swearing, he probably would have done so. He had had a bad feeling from the moment he had noticed that his prey was heading for a planet teaming with life forms. And not just animal life, but obviously an intelligent and technologically advanced race.
His prey could hide here undetected for years, waiting for the humans to take that last step and then he would be loose on the galaxy again.
But now the hunter had another problem. Two humans had arrived, the lights from their breathing masks reflecting off the space ship on the ground. Some kind of electronically assisted communication was going on, but as the hunter hadn't brought any equipment with him, he didn't know what they were talking about. Not that he had had the time to learn their language yet, so he wouldn't have understood them anyway.
What the humans didn't know was that their electronic communication so close had triggered the self-destruct mechanism of the spacecraft. That was in fact the reason Hunter had forgone to bring any equipment himself. He knew that his prey knew that he was followed. The hyper drive engine of his prey's space craft was burned out – not that his own ship was faring that much better – and thus wasn't of any more use to him. But if he could use it to finally get rid of the one who hunted him …
Hunter desperately thought of ways to warn the humans, but nothing came to his mind. Here under water the explosion of the space craft would be muted relative to the damage it would cause above water, but still it could very well be fatal to one or maybe even both of the humans.
One of the two humans reached out his hand for the ship, and Hunter knew he had run out of time. What he intended to do was against the law, but it was likely the only chance the humans had to survive. Readying himself, he waited for the inevitable explosion to come.
oooooo
John, standing closest, received the full force of the blast. It blew him backwards against Gordon, who was torn off his feet by the shock wave and the impact of his brother's body.
"John!" Gordon yelled, as he tried to hold onto John, who suddenly floated aimlessly in the water.
He hadn't needed to bother. John was out cold. A cloud of pinkish blood started immediately to form around John's side, where a piece of the exploded object had imbedded itself into John's flesh.
"John!" A note of panic now crept into Gordon's voice.
An exploding bomb was never a good thing. An exploding bomb underneath three hundred feet of water was exponentially worse. The only good thing in the whole situation was that of all the brothers Gordon was the one who was best equipped to handle a situation like this. For three years he had been with WASP, the World Aquanaut Security Patrol, before he had quit in order to join International Rescue. During his time with WASP, he had trained extensively in underwater recovery and rescue, aware that those skills would be useful once he started working in the 'family business'.
Of course, he had never thought that one day he would need to use those skills to save his brother's life.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself down. He knew to panic would be the absolute wrong thing to do. Any mistake on his part could very well spell his brother's death. For one moment, he wished they had taken Thunderbird 4 to check out the source of this morning's alarm. In the little submarine, it would have been no problem to get John to safety. Then he pushed that thought aside, knowing if he started to wish for things, he might as well wish that that thing had never exploded. But it had and now he had to deal with it.
First thing first. Checking over John's breathing mask, he found that there didn't seem to be any cracks or leaks and the rest of the diving equipment also seemed to be in good shape.
He placed two fingers against John's neck. For a moment, there was nothing, but then he felt a flutter against his fingertips, followed a moment later by a second, then a third. Gordon exhaled in relief.
He pulled John close, wrapping his left arm around the other man's chest. He felt it expand, chasing away the last of his concerns. John was breathing under his own power. This was good. He didn't know how John was able to breathe on his own with a wound like the one in his side and a cut on his head that now also began to bleed, but Gordon was not above looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Only now, he realized that Scott was screaming in his ears, demanding to know what was going on.
"Scott, I'm here," he called back.
For a moment there was silence, then came Scott's concern tinged voice, "What the hell is going on? What happened?"
Gordon collected his thoughts. "That thing we found, it exploded. John stood closest and got knocked out. He's breathing on his own, though I'm not sure how. I'm going to get him up now. Maybe it would be best you get the hover jet ready to pick us up. John is bleeding pretty badly and a piece of shrapnel got stuck in his side."
Scott didn't hesitate. "Okay. I'll be at the boat in seven minutes."
"We'll be waiting for you. Over and out."
"Over and out."
While he had been explaining the situation to Scott, he had started to swim upwards with his brother in tow. With strong, steady kicks of his legs, they quickly traversed into the lighter and warmer regions of water. At least, thanks to the special breathing equipment Brains had designed and built he didn't need to worry about wasting any time for decompression.
He kept his eyes open for sharks, though. As far as Gordon knew, there were no sharks currently in the area. Out of interest, Gordon kept close taps on the maritime population around the island and knew pretty well where the larger animals usually hunted. But with John's blood in the water this could quickly change.
Even before they broke through the water surface, John began to stir in Gordon's arms.
"Wha …?" he asked, just as they surfaced. "Ouch."
"Don't move, John, you've been hurt. Let me help you."
He freed John from his breathing tanks and equipment belt, letting them sink in the water. John didn't need them any more and right now they were only additional weight.
Gordon looked around, spotting the boat not a hundred yards away. Swimming sideways, he headed for it, still dragging John along.
"No kiddin'. What happened?"
"Don't move," Gordon repeated more forcefully. John must have lost by now a lot of blood and, thanks to the water, there was no chance of the wounds to stop bleeding on their own. If John moved and jarred that piece of metal in his side, they might as well not bother to try to get him to safety. He would be dead before he reached the island. Of course, thanks to the cooling effect of the water, John had probably no idea how serious the situation was.
Gordon felt John tense up as if he was about to fight Gordon's command. But then he relaxed again, allowing his younger brother to pull him towards the boat. They all had trained on water rescues – though of course no one as extensively as Gordon – and knew what to do to make it easier for the rescuer.
They and the hover jet reached the boat at the same time.
The speakers in Gordon's mask crackled on. "Gordon, how is John?"
"I'm fine," John replied, but was then cut off by Gordon.
"Still alive, obviously." Gordon trod water, still holding John in front of him. He was for some reason a little annoyed that John sounded so much better than he had a right to feel at the moment. The few minutes it had taken Gordon to reach the surface had been hell to him. A thousand scenarios on what could go wrong had passed through his mind, and he had not been able to stop worrying about what could happen. He knew his reaction to John's words was childish, but he just couldn't help himself. He felt somewhat short changed.
"Can you drop the basket, Scott? I want to move him as little as possible."
"FAB."
The side door of the small jet opened and Gordon saw Brains peering out. The engineer folded out a small support beam with a strong cable attached to it. The other end was tied to a bright red, man-sized contraption, the rescue basket. Brains pushed the basket towards the edge of the hold, then lowered it towards the water. In the meantime, Scott held the jet rock steady at one fifty feet, just high enough that the blast from the engines didn't interfere with the rescue.
As soon as the basket hit the water not ten feet away, Gordon swam for it with John in tow.
The basket had several floatation devices attached to its side to compensate for the weight of its steel frame. Gordon pushed a button that released some of the air inside the floaters so it sunk a little bit lower in the water. He then manoeuvred it underneath John who had stretched out alongside it.
Gordon noted that John didn't bleed as badly from the wound in his side any more. This could be a good sign; maybe the wound wasn't as bad as he had thought at first. But it also could be a bad sign, meaning that he already had lost too much blood and had nothing left to spare. He hoped for the former, but feared the later.
In no time, he had manhandled John into the basket and closed the safety straps. He pushed back, watching as Brains hoisted the basket with his brother in it back onboard.
"We h-h-have him, Gordon," Brains gave the all clear.
"FAB, just get him home. I'll bring the boat back."
The hover jet gained height then turned and headed back to the island and the sick room there. Gordon knew that Brains was more than capable to administer First Aid for John. Though Brains had no medical degree, he had made it his mission to keep the pilots of his beloved Thunderbirds in tip-top shape. Sometimes said pilots speculated – always in jest though – that Brains considered them just as some other specialized equipment that could be easily fixed by applying a hammer and a soldering iron. But the truth was that Brains cared about them – as they all cared about him.
With a sigh, Gordon climbed back into the boat and pointed it back to the island and to news of his brother.
tbc