Joanne knew she had to get up.Since she'd remembered what had happened, and discovered who was behind all this, she'd been rooted to the spot. Truth be told, she was terrified, Cth'ctchi was a monster and one she'd spent sleepless nights telling herself was never going to hurt her again… Yet here she was. She was shivering uncontrollably now, her still wet clothes clinging to her curled up body. Her eyes were darting around, inspecting every shadow and sharply jumping to faint noises that occasionally reached her ears, trying to detect their source. She didn't dare try and 'see' her surroundings with her mind, not while she knew Cth'ctchi was anywhere near her, and the glimpses of what the ship contained when she'd finally freed herself from the drug where just as bad as the rouge Predator. She couldn't remember much of what she had seen, feelings more than images standing out in her mind, but it had been a cocktail of fear, hunger and the focused thoughts that only belonged to a hunter stalking its prey. And there was something else too… Cth'ctchi's mind had drawn hers as he was the only psychic creature she had previously 'felt' with her mind, but something much bigger, and somehow older and more primitive was also out there…She started to stab her knife at the cold metal wall she leant on, trying to scratch it in some way. She wasn't making any marks on it, yet somehow it made her feel better, the repetitive action allowing all thoughts to drain from her. She was abruptly brought back to the present by a harsh cry that came echoing up the passageway. She froze, knife in mid swing as she listened for approaching noises, had her 'wall stabbing' attracted unwanted attention? She mentally berated herself as to being so stupid as to make noise in a place full of unknown things that wanted to eat her, and prayed to whatever deity that was currently watching over her that nothing was coming… What if it was Cth'ctchi? Hatred and fear battled in her mind at the thought of him, and the noise sounded once more, her eyes going wide as it reverberated all around her, yet somehow it didn't sound like a Predator… Not that she was an expert on what noises they made, she just remembered their roars and clicking vividly from her mall encounter and this sounded higher, and if it was possible more choral, as if many creatures where making the sound not one. The thought that whatever it was close by, it wasn't a Predator bizarrely calmed her, enough to seriously think about what she was going to do for the first time since she'd snapped back from her mind's 'excursion'. She knew she couldn't stay here, yet the thought of leaving what had so far been a sanctuary was daunting. Leaving here meant that she would eventually have to do something proactive about her situation, just like in the mall 6 months ago.
Joanne almost laughed bitterly, how stupid she'd been then! How brave and full of confidence! 7 foot monsters that hack people to pieces for fun? Of course she could take them! She shook her head softly, no, she knew better now, knew that if you go looking for trouble in a place like this then you'll get it. What was the old saying? 'If you play with matches, you'll get burned.' She thumped her head against the wall beside her, what could she possibly do against the foes she'd face in here?
Closing her eyes she tried to think of what options, if any, she had. She could get up and move about, looking for a way out of this mess or she could sit here, and wait for the first thing to come along and kill her. Somehow the thought of simply waiting for death wasn't an option. While there wasn't much hope she'd get out of this alive she couldn't not try. She couldn't just forfeit her life. She thought of how Cth'ctchi would love her to die that way, cowering before him, completely at his mercy, and she knew that she couldn't, wouldn't give that son of a bitch the satisfaction.
Her mind made up, she got to her feet once more. She had no idea how long she'd sat there, but now she had to move on, just do anything except cringe there and wait. As she walked away from the dead end she tried to resurrect the positive attitude she'd had when she was in the shopping centre facing these things for the first time. Back then she'd gone on fearlessly, full of hope and optimism that she could win, but now, a little older and a lot wiser, she couldn't feel that again. Not with what she had seen and now knew. She closed her eyes, determined to wipe thoughts of bloody deaths and exulting Predators from her mind and when she opened them, she started to actively walk down the corridor rather than drift, alert and ready to try and survive.

It was about half an hour later, still wandering around, that Joanne stumbled across a massacre. She'd turned a corner and there it was. She'd stopped, staring, not truly believing what was in front of her. There where eight people in with varying degrees of damage to their bodies, some disembowelled while others had limbs missing. Some she realised had been completely torn apart, so the total death count for the room was probably more than eight. She tried to think, what should she be doing, what now? The smell was making her gag, and while she tried to think all her mind could picture was the grisly internals that were lying in wet heaps on the floor. She perversely wondered why there wasn't blood everywhere then remembered the floor was a metal grid… She gritted her teeth angrily, was that coincidence or an essential feature of all Predator craft? Maybe it was one of Cth'ctchi's innovations, so there was less to clean up after hunts… She shook herself and focused on the situation, her resentment at such a design feature clearing her head.
Move on. That's what she should be doing now… The creature that did this still might be around and even if it wasn't, the scent of fresh blood would attract others who would probably have no problem with taking her down as well.
She started to back away slowly, more out of a wish to not disturb the scene than anything else, when her foot caught on something. Looking down she saw a long spear, for the moment just a staff with a pointed tip yet Joanne knew spikes could jut out of the thing given the right command. This was a Predator weapon and she'd seen one used before. She bent and picked it up, the dead corpses forgotten for the moment, and examined it. A simple tap in the right place made blades snap out of the shaft in a sudden loud movement and once again, the noise jerked her out of her curious inspection. If this was lying around, then were there any other weapons or supplies here too?
Joanne looked at the bodies, who stared blankly back. She really didn't want to go any closer to them, and this spear was already a great improvement over her little knife so she was about to turn and leave the awful place when she spotted a familiar barrel sticking out from under one of the people's legs. Joanne gritted her teeth and tried not to think about what she was going to do, before dashing to the fallen human, snatching at the barrel and running off down the opposite passage, throwing looks over her shoulder at the still unbelievable slaughter. Only when she'd rounded a corner did she stop and examine what she had recovered.
Like she had suspected, it was a gun of some kind, but clearly not meant for human use, the trigger guard being much larger than any human hand could fit. She frowned. Why where Predators giving humans their technology? From everything she knew about them they where fiercely possessive about their belongings, so giving them away simply didn't make sense. She paused in her train of thought, but what if they knew they were going to get them back?
She snorted, yes that was probably it. Humans where too boring to hunt on their own, so they'd been given some decent weapons to spice up the hunt for the Predators. She looked back in the direction of the bloodbath, some use the weapons had been to them. Examining the gun again she realised there was no power source in it. She groaned, she'd have to go back and find it, or the gun was useless, and she turned and reluctantly approached the scene once again.
As Joanne approached the remains she was getting more and more scared, the mutilated bodies reminding her that this could easily be her fate. She tried to shut the rising panic out but her mind wasn't helping, her fear allowing her power to wander out of control. She could hear the screams of the doomed victims as they'd battled vainly against the things attacking them, yet she could not see what was causing their deaths. She reached the body she'd found the gun under and started looking around, trying to avoid the faces. There was nothing. She was getting frantic now for some reason, the pressure of being constantly under the silent scrutiny of the dead distracting her from her search. She shut her eyes and clutched her head, standing in the middle of the room. Pushing the visions of what had happened here out of her mind she focussed on what she was looking for. Slowly, she expanded the thought until she found it, the power pack, near the door she'd come in. She let the thought dissolve slowly rather than abandoning it to shatter, this keeping out the nightmarish scenes in her head for awhile, or at least until she got the pack and moved on. She knelt down a picked up the strange device, before slotting into the weapon's handle. A red light briefly lit up on its side, before going out again, yet the gun still hummed faintly with power so Joanne guessed it was working.

Something behind her scuttled amongst the debris on the floor.

Joanne turned and fired at the direction of the sound, and the blue projectile cut through one of the bodies on the ground. Her breaths where coming faster now, but as she turned, pointing her weapon in every direction, she couldn't see what it was…

Then a large rodent appeared on top of one of the corpses. It was sitting up, on two over developed back legs, and sniffing in her direction, whiskers twitching. Joanne looked at it puzzled, did Predators get rats on their ships? Another one was on her right, again sniffing at her intently. She began to back away, feeling uneasy. They looked just like large rats, and another had just arrived when suddenly the strange cry she'd heard earlier echoed through the room. She looked down into the passage beyond the chamber and when she looked back, the rodent things had gone.

>Defiantly not good. When a rat deserts a ship you know it's going down… Joanne thought to herself starting to back towards the opposite exit. As she stepped over the bodies once more, mind taken off how disturbing they where by the strange call that was sounding from ahead, she could feel something coming towards her, like a wave, billowing out towards her. She stared as a murky, flowing shape detached itself from the darkness up ahead and made straight for her, and with out even thinking about it she turned and ran.

The things were gaining on her, she could feel it, and she pelted down the corridor as fast as she could go. She couldn't keep this up much longer, her cold and scared condition was sapping her strength before it should have failed, yet she could feel something up ahead, something familiar…
She hurriedly checked that it wasn't a Predator, or worse Cth'ctchi, and was relived to find the recognizable signals came from humans! She didn't know if they could help her but the thought of not having to die alone in this place spurred her on towards them, as the creatures chasing her got nearer still.
Just before she rounded a corner her mind screamed at her to duck, and she dived forward, not even questioning her intuition, going into a sloppy roll that brought her into another chamber. A door slammed down behind her, nearly catching her foot, and surprised shouts where coming from the people she had found, while faint thuds came from the other side of the door as Joanne's pursuers failed to stop in time.

"Fucking things" Someone said loudly. "How many more bunches of them are we gonna come across?" Joanne looked up to see a tall man gesturing wildly at the door.

"Never mind that, they can't get through the door, what I wanna know is who she is?" A woman who looked in her twenties said, pointing at Joanne who was still on the floor.

"Mann you where lucky, we didn't even know you where there! A couple seconds later and the door would've crushed you!" A guy said, approaching and offering her his hand. Another girl snatched at the guy,

"Dave don't! You don't know what she is! She came from out there and we know nothing about her and…"

"She looks more or less human to me" the guy said gently as he continued his approach.

Joanne smiled at him and accepted the hand, and upon getting to her feet she looked around at the people she now found herself with. The group was of mixed gender with about 14 people in it, most young like her but a few in their thirties by the look of it. Joanne grinned awkwardly at them as she felt mistrust course round the group, despite the fact she was human, like them, and that they'd just saved her.

"Erm, thanks." She began. "My name's Joanne…"

In the command room, by himself, Cth'ctchi brooded over the bad start the hunt had got off to. None of the others thought so of course, but the possible loss of the female was intensely frustrating. He couldn't just leave the controls to go look for her in the hunt zone, yet he hated the thought that every second he waited it became more likely she'd been killed by some animal. He couldn't even search for her using his mind, the bloody hard meat Queen was drowning every thought he sent out. He flexed his mandibles impatiently, eyes silted as he tried to think of a way to regain control over her so he could have his fun… Yet there were other matters to attend to besides his personal vendetta. He pulled up the view of the waiting Yautja and next to it that of the Alien Queen, her small number of offspring scuttling around, taking eggs when laid and crawling everywhere. One suddenly appeared directly in front of the lens and Cth'ctchi angrily zapped it off with another set of tasers, these ones much more higher powered. A small light started blinking and Cth'ctchi promptly pressed a single button in response. Suddenly exits to the chambers both creatures where in opened, letting the inhabitants out into the ship. Cth'ctchi checked that everything had been released properly before turning his back on the control panels to put the final touches on his armour, strapping a set of vials filled with clear fluid to one of his arms. Before he left he glanced at the screen showing the Queen, now sending her children out to explore. The Queen embryo he'd stolen from the labs, who bred them for the adulthood trials, was a standard issue one, with altered genetics so that the chest bursters would emerge well formed and grow quickly so there would be plenty of adult aliens to fight. What made this hunt different, more dangerous than all others before it was the Queen had no restraints upon her. No machines controlled how many face huggers she produced or stopped her fighting herself. In this hunt, anything could happen, and certainly only the strongest would survive. Cth'ctchi finally attached his helmet, covering his features. Then he strode from the room, the door locking behind him, to find death, glory, and her…