New chapter time...

fizzleup: thank you for your review : ) I'm glad people don't mind the psychic stuff, as it does allow my little girl to at least get away from scrapes with Predators alive.

Anyway, enjoy...

D'ran rubbed his head, wincing inside his mask, "Yes Cth'ctchi. Let me deal with it and I'll be on my way."

>As you wish. Came the mocking reply. Cth'ctchi then visibly flinched, fists clenching in and causing his wrist blades to extend. D'ran stared at him and he snarled.
>It's just the hard meat Queen. For some reason she seems to dislike me being so close by, and causing one of her brood distress, so she's trying to weaken me with her own impressive psychic abilities. He resheathed his blades and turned his back on the small xenomorph. Suddenly the drone stopped its frantic struggle, and simply lay there, twitching spasmodically.

"Hardly any sport in killing it now, what where you doing to it?" D'ran said, stepping forward towards the fallen creature.

>Playing with its mind, surprisingly sensitive to such things really. The whole species is over dependant on their psychic links. The Queen must have chosen to attack again as Cth'ctchi's whole body shuddered, a small sound escaping his mouth as he tried to collect himself.

>And you're not? D'ran couldn't help but think, taking out his ceremonial dagger. It was made from the exoskeleton of a xenomorph, so when making trophies from recently killed ones it would not be damaged by their corrosive bloodsaving combat weapons from being dulled more than necessary. Not normally used for killing hard meats, but there was no point damaging a weapon on a victim that would provide no resistance…
A firm thrust ended the creatures suffering. Suddenly a fresh presence exploded into his head, he'd never felt anything like it, so powerful, so full of hate… Cth'ctchi had dropped to the floor in a crouch, holding his head and roaring in protest and one of the humans passed out, slumping sideways onto the other who was screaming. Cth'ctchi gave a final roar of defiance as he stood up, shaking the worst of the Queen's assault off. He laughed at D'ran as he followed suit more slowly, standing up despite the continual mental battering.

>Why, having just declared it's uselessness as a kill, have you killed it anyway? Why not leave it?

"Because before you started meddling it was a fully functional hard meat, which I was hunting and which lead me on a good pursuit, even if it was mostly chasing! It should have had a quick, honourable death in combat, not be reduced to a helpless wreck by your mind games. And you can talk to me normally here, so DON'T invade my head again! It's bad enough with the Queen."

D'ran turned back to the dead xenomorph, about to try and prepare it as a trophy. Then Cth'ctchi's presence forced through his mind, dropping him to his knees, roaring at the unseen, cowardly attack.

>I'd rather communicate this way D'ran. It reminds ones such as yourself of the power I have. OF WHY I AM COMMANDER OF THIS VESSEL, AND OF YOU.

D'ran was on the floor now, he could feel the acid blood of the dead drone attacking one of his legs but that pain was distant, drowned by the one in his head.

>Now. Where was I before you and your pathetic prey stumbled across my path?
>Ah yes.

He turned and strode slowly towards the cowering humans. The pressure on D'ran's mind lifted slightly, but was ever present, as if to remind him it could return in full force at any moment. D'ran saw one of the humans pull the unconsiuous one in towards them, eyes large with fear.
Cth'ctchi unsheathed his wrist blades with a simple clench of his fist.

"What are you doing?" D'ran said, getting the words out beside the pain.

>What does it look like?

"And you call my prey pathetic! They cannot be harmed! They have no value as trophies! They are injured humans with no weapons! One a female, the other unconscious! Only a coward would take their lives to try and gain honour from the skulls they would provide!" D'ran's outrage gave him strength to get his scathing retort out before Cth'ctchi hammered into his head again.

"WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT IS HONOURABLE?" Cth'ctchi roared, in his rage not using telepathy, "WHO ARE YOU TO CRITISE ME? AND WHO WILL KNOW THAT THESE WHERE NOT HUMANS OF GREAT COURAGE AND STRENGTH? ONE HUMAN SKULL IS THE SAME AS ANOTHER!"

"I WILL KNOW! AND I WILL SPEAK OUT AGAINST YOU! YOU WHO WRONGLY CLAIM HONOUR AT EVERY TURN!" D'ran forced himself up, against the blows Cth'ctchic and the Queen were raining down on his mind, and into a fighting stance. His blood burned with disgust and hatred, that he had ever taken orders from this bad blood! Never again, he swore to himself, never again…

Cth'ctchic laughed, and trying to shrug the Queen's persistant attacks off once more, prepared himself for the fight.
D'ran roared at the pain and his foe, charging blindly into attack.


The Queen hissed louder as she threw her mind at the beings above her. One of her children had suffered immeasurably there, and then died! Died so close to her, so close yet still she had been helpless.
She pushed harder, she knew the one who had done it. Knew and despised it. If she could only leave this chamber, to seek it out...
But she couldn't. And so now her children where scurrying through this labyrinth that was their territory to the place where those responsible for the cruel torture still dwelt. She did not discriminate between the four beings in the area. As far as she knew they all had played a role in the death of a drone not even hours after it had earned its adult body. Only monsters would do such things to an infant!
Yet revenge would be had. Her brood had swelled, and while something inside her told her it was not large enough yet for them to be totally secure it was still enough so that she could control events in her territory.

The drones tending her, her eggs and those captured for impregnation seemed distracted in their tasks, yet the Queen did not care for now. She would reinforce their mental instructions once she had destroyed this creature she had endured so long. With it gone, there would be none to challenge her or play with her children's minds.
She focused more of her mind on those above, trying to weaken them further, grinding her teeth together in frustration that she could not be the one to find them and rend their flesh, that she could only hurt them using her mind and not her talons.

The weakening links between the Queen and her brood caused some to cry out to her, seeking to strengthen the bond once more and she obliged them briefly, linking enough to reassure them before concentrating again on the chamber above them. The attending drones chattered and rubbed heads together, seeking comfort from each others presence while their Queen was busy. None of them liked her absence but they understood the reason for it. The whole brood, now somewhat used to deaths in their ranks, had been distraught as they felt what had happened to the injured drone, and those travelling to deal with those responsible had minds only of violence and vengeance.

Throwing more of her powers at the four, the Queen hissed in anticipation.
Soon.


Joanne's mind reeled. The battle filled her mind and she was finding it hard to concentrate on anything else. Kelly sat where the Predator had dropped her, gun at her feet, staring into space. Then a particularly powerful surge sent Joanne's hands to her head.

"Agghhh."

"What? What is it?"

"Can't you feel it? Its everywhere, it's like they're tearing chunks out of each other…"

"I've got a headache, but that might be more to do with my recent strangulation."

That snapped Joanne back to the here and now, and she tried to ignore the mental fighting as she looked hard at Kelly. That last sentence hadn't sounded like her at all, the panicing, grief stricken girl she had briefly got to know gone. She sounded calmer, more collected, the matter-of-fact way which she had described her brush with death alarming. Had she tampered with too much when she'd got Kelly to shoot that black furry thing?

"You know you're lucky not to be dead. If it wasn't for that white thing..."

"I know."

"Why the hell did you shoot at the Predator? If you hadn't done that he'd probably just left us alone."

"Whatever."

"I told you! Weren't you listening? They kill for sport! Two little unarmed girls do not provide good hunting and therefore get left alone, unless of course they decide to attack!"

Kelly was quiet.

"You told me to shoot…"

"I MEANT THE BLACK THINGS! THE THINGS THAT WERE TRYING TO KILL US! NOT THE PREDATOR WE'D HAVE NO HOPE IN HELL KILLING!"

"He looks pretty dead to me."

"That was pure luck and you know it. Besides looks can be deceiving."

"What?"

"He's not dead. Close to, but not dead."

"But…"

"He's dying, probably from blood loss thanks to you, but the crab thing hasn't really done any damage to him."

"What did it do then?"

"I'm not sure, but it looks like it put something inside him, like a parasite."

"Are there any more here? I don't want any parasites eating my organs."

"No, I looked and, while I can't be sure, it seems there's not another living thing around. Those black furries must have taken care of everything else. And besides, there's only one creature inside him, I noticed it because its giving off a weak psychic signal, almost like its looking for, or trying to reach something."

"One is more than enough for me."

"Besides, it's weird…"

"This whole bloody situation is weird to me!"

"Just listen for a minute will you? The thing inside him is a very simple creature, even more simple than the crab thing. That means it's probably a larvae of something. Now larvae need to eat to grow into their adult forms, but this one isn't, it's just sitting there, in his chest. What's even stranger is that despite the fact it's not eating, it is developing into something else so whatever…"

"It's growing! So it's just going to graduate to whatever its 'adult form' is in its little… chest nursery and then what!"

"I don't know!"

"You're the God damm psychic! Make an educated guess! Well you keep saying that you are. Like I've seen you use it so much to help us."

"It saved your life! If I hadn't distracted that Predator then you would have been dead!"

"It was the crab thing that really saved me! Why aren't you using your little 'powers' to help us more? Why aren't you going full out against these things, like melting their brains and stuff!"

"You have no idea how hard it is! And I have no idea what would happen if I just let go and… and I don't even know if it's possible, or what else it could cause! I could pass out, I could kill us both, I could blow up this fucking ship, or alert every horrid carnivorous creature to where we are and piss them off enough to come chasing after us, do you want me to continue? We've got weapons that are far more reliable than my mind as fighting tools."

"What good are they gonna do! So far we've got by on luck, just like you said. Not our strength or battle prowess or skill because WE DON'T HAVE ANY OF THOSE! WE'RE JUST TWO GIRLS!"

"Speak for yourself." Joanne said, leaning back against the tunnel wall, "After my last encounter with these bastards I went to all the weapons and martial arts course I could. It's easy to learn when all you have to do is slide the techniques from the instructor's mind."

"You can do that, but not anything that might actually hurt something!"

"Yes I can do that! And I can distract things, control things, take thoughts from people's heads, they do cause some pain but when would I have had the chance to practice seriously hurting something without exposing myself? And why would I want to! What would you have done, experimented on your friends, family?" she held her breath, about to say 'boyfriend' but she wasn't that cruel. "The birds that come to feed from my bird table, the dogs that I see being walked in the park? Subtle tricks, those I can do. All out death and destruction, I have never even tried!"

"So what have we got then?" Kelly said mockingly, "Two weapons, one each, and one that you have to be close to whatever is trying to hack you to pieces to actually be any good! I know which one I'm having! Then there's you, with whatever fighting skills you think you have and your next to useless mind tricks. And me. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"

Joanne bit back the retorts about her 'useless' mind tricks, which could still scout around for hidden danger if she remembered to and had helped save Kelly's life, among other things. What would be the point? You couldn't tell someone something they don't want to hear. Besides, they better start moving. All this shouting might attract attention to them. Joanne sighed and stood up.

"C'mon. We better get moving."

"No."

"What?"

"No! You said there wasn't anything around here, so it's safe for now. Unless your fantastic mental thingie was wrong."

"Just because there isn't anything nearby now doesn't mean its going to stay like that! All our shouting might have brought us into something's interest."

"Then you'll feel it coming, if you're so convinced you psi stuff isn't useless."

"What about that!" Joanne said, wildly gesticulating at the fallen Predator to try and get her point across, "what about the thing that's growing in his chest! Best case scenario it's one of those crab things, and we can shoot it when it crawls out of his mouth! Actually, give me the gun, might as well shoot his chest in now and kill the thing while it's staying still for us. He's only got a couple more hours bleeding to death to do anyway, and it's better than the chance I might miss when it comes out and have it stalk us for God knows how long, those crab things look fast."

Joanne held out her hand for the gun and Kelly picked it up but didn't hand it to her.

"Kelly give me the God damm gun!"

"No!"

"WHAT!"

"NO!"

"HAVE YOU GONE COMPLETELY INSANE? YOU WANT THIS THING TRAILING AFTER US, PROBABLY CATCHING ONE OF US AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WHO IT MIGHT BE TRYING TO CONTACT! IT MIGHT BE CALLING IT'S… IT'S PACK OR SOMETHING! YOU WANT A HORDE OF THE THINGS CHASING US! THE SOONER WE KILL IT THE BETTER AND I DON'T KNOW WHY I DIDN'T THINK OF IT BEFORE!"

"NO! Listen to me Joanne! We both know we've only been surviving on luck, so why don't we make our own?"

"What?"

"We only survived last time because the crab thing jumped on that Predator's face, so what if we had one following us, ready to attack whatever we encountered!"

"You have gone insane, what the hell would stop it attacking us?"

"You would Joanne."

Joanne stared at Kelly. She could tell she meant every word.

"You said it was telepathic and that you could do 'subtle tricks'…"

"Listen Kelly…"

"We need something's help Joanne!" Kelly blurted out, body shaking with conviction, "control that thing so it will!"