Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt

She'd tried to walk, but her legs kept buckling under her, and over her objections the healer had instructed her trainer to simply pick her up and carry her on board. He'd taken her to the healer's chamber, placed her on the examination table, and injected her with something. That was the last thing she remembered for a while.

When she woke, she found herself near-naked except for the mesh undergarment of her armor and strips of the strange animal hide, covering her chest and waist in an alien version of a bikini. She figured that was her trainer's idea, although she had no clue if Yautja understood human modesty, or if there was an analog amongst their females. The undergarment was working though, and kept her body cool and dry, leaving just her face exposed to the warm humid air of the ship.

A small mask covered her mouth and nose, allowing her to breathe cool clean air, and she recognized it as being the same device she'd needed to use if she'd spent long periods of time on her trainer's ship. Prolonged exposure to the atmosphere preferred by Yautja ended up drying out her lungs and giving her a crippling cough. Her trainer had used a similar device if he'd removed his mask for long periods of time, so she guessed that Yautja had some of the same problems in reverse.

Not willing to trust her limbs yet, she looked around the chamber by moving just her head and eyes. The first thing she noticed was this wasn't the healer's chamber, she must have been moved here while she slept under the influence of whatever her trainer had given her. She was lying on a stack of furs on what she assumed was a bed in one corner of the room, which was stark and bare. In the muted red glow from the walls, she noticed the stack of gray metal against one of the walls below a closed trophy vault, her armor. Sitting on top of the pile was a facemask, but not the same one her trainer had given her all those years ago. She remembered vividly the sparks and pain as kainde amedha talons had cut through it, destroying it in the process.

She let her eyes roam over this new one, taking in the surface detailing. The same black and gray pattern the weaponsmaster had embedded into her armor was duplicated on the left side of the "face", but what a face! The eyeshields, ovoid in her old mask, were almond shaped, angled inwardly. Still opaque black, she thought she could see a shimmer of silver deep within, making looking into them appear as if she was staring into the depths of space itself and seeing the stars. The facial features were more pronounced, even looking as if the mask had cheekbones, and ended with a large raised area where her mouth and chin would sit behind. The mask was lined with symbols that she recognized as being the written language of the Yautja engraved into the surface.

On the mask's forehead, burned into the metal and highlighted in silver, was the mark. Her mark. Self-consciously she raised her hand to the side of her neck, and ran her fingertips gently across the raised acid-burned scar there, tracing out the pattern of the same symbol. She blinked as she felt the mark, it didn't feel like it had only just been applied, the skin was almost healed completely.

"How long have I been asleep?", she wondered. She lay there for another ten minutes, slowly cataloging her long list of aches and pains before risking rolling over to the side of the alien bed. She swung around and tentatively put her feet on the deck, and she noticed that her bare feet could detect a slight vibration through the warm metal flooring. She wasn't sure what that meant, but she started to get nervous all the same. This was a space ship, after all. Tentatively she levered herself up, until she was standing, and with no idea what she was supposed to do, or when anyone might come for her, she went exploring the chamber she'd woken in.

A door along one wall opened to her touch on the black plate beside it, revealing what she assumed was a bathroom. It had something analogous to a shower cubicle in there, at least, but the toilet (if that's what it was) had her scratching her head. Gingerly she tested the various controls until she was satisfied she'd figured out what everything in there was for, then took the plunge, metaphorically speaking, removing her undergarment and the alien hide clothes someone had provided her before taking a long, hot shower.

Unlike the massaging shower head in her apartment, this one sent solid streams of water against her bruised body, washing away a lot of the oldest blue stains from her previous injuries. Having used the blue fluid a lot over the years, she had a pretty good idea how long it took before that usually happened, and came to the conclusion it meant that she'd been sleeping for at least three or four days. She couldn't find anything that looked remotely like soap, shampoo, or conditioner, but the powerful jets seemed to blast much of the dirt away from her. Once she'd finished, she turned off the water and had to hold onto the sides of the stall as gusts of warm air blew against her from all directions, drying her off. "This, I can get used to", she grinned to herself.

Dried and finally feeling human again, she stepped out of the cubicle gathered the clothes she'd been wearing before heading into the main chamber again. She dressed as she'd been when she'd woken, before continuing her exploration, starting at the stack of her armor underneath the trophy cabinet. She picked up the new mask, marveling at the intricacy of the decoration, and for a moment her heart ached for Blade, lost in the battle. This could have been done by the weaponsmaster's hands themselves. She turned it over in her hand and saw that the translation device was mounted inside this new version, it must have been retrieved from the old mask.

She let out a sigh of relief as she saw the translator, it meant she wouldn't be stuck trying to figure out the meaning of compound loop recordings again. Deciding quickly, she began to don her armor so she could wear the mask properly, but she was confused when she found none of her weapons in the pile save her pair of wristblade vambraces. She looked around but couldn't find them, and wondered what had happened. She thought for a moment that, since the hunt was done, the Elder had taken back the weapons she had been loaned, but she was also missing weapons that had been hers, as well as the plasma cannon from her shoulder.

She became even more concerned when she discovered that her medical kit was also missing. Her armor had to all intents and purposes been stripped to the basics, leaving her only with her wristblades. As she shrugged and wriggled to settle her armor into place, she moved her hands and wrists, testing the blades, and once satisfied hung the mask from a clip on her waist before continuing her investigation of the chamber. In the process, she discovered the trophies she had brought on board, the necklaces and strings of teeth as well as the two human skulls were also absent.

The only decoration she retained was the medallion Blade had given her, with a kainde amedha tooth either side on its pendant string. She gripped it in one hand, trying to ride the memories of the time she had spent with the weaponsmaster, and the sense of loss. She had grown to like him in the short time they'd had, even if most of the time it had been him throwing her all over the place. She missed his insights into little dirty tricks in close fighting, and as she stood there she made a silent vow to herself to practice what he had taught her, to keep a part of his legacy alive as long as she was. It was the least she could offer his memory.

She checked inside the various storage compartments against the walls, but they were empty, the same with the ones beside and under the bed. As she examined the room she began to understand how this would be a Yautja's home while on hunt. She left the Trophy Vault until near the end of her exploration, approaching it nervously. All the signs were that the chamber belonged to no-one, but her trainer had emphasized that to touch a hunter's trophies, or their weapons, without their permission would get her killed immediately, and she was nervous as she approached the plate set against the wall that would open this one.

She pressed against the plate and stepped back quickly as a seam appeared from halfway up the wall to the ceiling, and the protective shield slid outwards and then down the wall to the floor. She blinked. She blinked again. She let out a soft mewl as she stumbled backwards, her legs hitting the edge of the bed, and she fell back onto her butt staring into the storage space she had opened. It was occupied.

A kainde amedha skull lay against the wall, the front pointing to the center of the space, pale bone shining in the white light that softly lit the entire area. Below it, either side of the centerline, two human skulls stared sightlessly forwards at her. Along a shelf made of some transparent material near the bottom of the vault, rows of small white teeth, bound with black cord, lay in a row.

Her trophies.

She sat there looking dumbfounded at the vault for long moments before a thought came to her, and she quickly went to the other large compartment embedded in the wall. She pressed the black panel and stepped back as another shielded area was revealed, bathed in white light.

Her weapons.

She shook her head, the answer screaming at her but she refused to believe it. This was her chamber on the ship? On a Yautja ship? The vibration her bare feet had felt through the decking came back to her, and she started to tremble. "Where are we?" , she whimpered in her mind. She shook herself and lifted the mask to her face, pressing it tightly with one hand as she connected it to her armor with the other, and as the pressure pulled it tight against her skin she pressed against the black panels, sealing the compartments up before walking out into the corridor.

-

As she made her way through the bowels of the ship, trying to find familiar sights to get her bearings, she could see the extent of the damage fighting the kainde amedha onboard had caused. None of the hunters had been unwise enough to try using their plasma weapons in such tight confines, but burnt out and shattered lighting panels on the walls as well as acid-eaten holes in the ship were testimony to violence of the battle. After several minutes of aimless wandering, she detected the growling of Yautja voices and adjusted her path to take her towards them.

As she rounded a corner, the voices stopped, as the four Yautja in the chamber turned to look at her. She recognized them all as being the surviving members of the hunting party, but she couldn't see her trainer. Unsure of where she was, she stood in the doorway until the Elder gestured for her to enter, and she inclined her head as she stepped through and looked around. The chamber was obviously some sort of communal area for the ship's company, she thought it felt like a dining hall although there was nothing readily identifiable as food on the table the unmasked Yautja were sitting at. She moved to one of the unoccupied stools around that table and sat, not sure what to do, or say.

"You slept for longer than we expected. You must have been in need", the Elder commented, growling a laugh.

"I feel much better than I have in several days, Elder, so I'd have to agree, although being able to take a shower helped a lot as well." She paused, unsure how to broach the subject, but the Second made the opening for her.

"You have been exploring your new quarters I see." She nodded, and was about to speak but he continued on. "We brought the kainde amedha skull from the weaponsmaster's vault, and put it with your other trophies in your vault while you were sleeping. If you want to rearrange their placement we will understand." She looked across the table at him, then to the Elder, before looking down.

"Is something wrong, young blood?", the Elder asked, a note of concern in his voice.

"No, Elder, not wrong. I'm just confused. I don't understand why I have been given quarters, or why my trophies are there, and my weapons." She paused for breath, then blurted "Are we in space?" All four Yautja looked taken aback, and the Second cocked his head to one side, leaning forwards slightly.

"No, we are still on the planet. Why do you ask?"

"When I woke up I could feel a vibration, I thought ..." She was interrupted as the Yautja clicked soft laughs, and the Elder growled an amused negative.

"No. The ship is too damaged to make orbit, let alone travel further yet. There are still many hull breaches from kainde amedha blood, and they damaged the drives. It took a lot of effort just to relocate the ship to an alternative place of concealment. The vibration you felt is the result of needing to use the planetary drive power source to maintain the cloaking of the ship." He paused, collecting his thoughts and she nodded before he went on.

"As for you being given quarters, there are several reasons. You took a blow to the head fighting the queen, and the healer wished to keep you under observation. Your other injuries too made it preferable that you not be moved but remain close to further aid should you have required it. There was also the question of how to return you to your nest, with the ship being moved." He stopped, and looked uncomfortable.

"Your trainer also raised the point that you might not wish to return to the place your friend died, not so soon." She blinked underneath her mask, surprised that he had considered her feelings that way, then twice as surprised when she realized she hadn't considered it herself. She nodded slowly.

"We will have to remain on this world for several more weeks, as you measure them. We can repair the hull damage, but the drives require parts that we no longer have replacements for. We sent a beacon requesting another ship to provide those replacements, but it will take that long at least before one will arrive. Given all of these things, I decided that it would be best if you were given quarters on board the ship, until we leave or you choose to return to your nest." He stopped then, and looked at the Second.

"Unless you choose to leave with us." She gasped as the Second's words scrolled across her line of sight. She looked around into the faces of all four Yautja, who were watching her intently. She took a deep breath, then spoke to the Elder, although her words were meant for all of them.

"I don't know what to say, what you offer is an honor beyond anything I can imagine. But right now, I truly don't know. It's all too soon, and too fast. I need to think about everything." The Elder nodded, purring with pleasure.

"A sensible course, decisions made in the heat of the hunt are not always the best ones possible." She laughed briefly.

"On the subject of hunts - since the queen is dead, does that mean the hive is destroyed?" The Elder growled uncertainty.

"She would have been unlikely to have attacked us with less than everything she had at her disposal, so the chances are high that we killed all of the current hive members. We still need to locate where the hive nested, and make sure there are no eggs or first stage organisms there. We moved the ship away from the site of the battle, even pyode amedha would have seen the fight and come to investigate, so it was decided to move closer to the location the kainde amedha seemed to be concentrated around." He looked at her and almost apologetically inclined his head. "That does mean we are within your hunting grounds."

She tried to understand, there was body language she wasn't familiar with present in all four Yautja, they seemed like they were nervous and tense waiting for her response. Then with sudden clarity it came to her, "your hunting grounds". Yautja didn't interfere in the hunting of others, even to the extent they would allow one of their number to die rather than intervene. They were worried she'd take offense that they were in an area they considered "hers" to hunt. She thought quickly, looking for the right words to use, then looked around at them before addressing the Elder.

"Honored Elder, you invited me to hunt kainde amedha with you, and for a time at least I have a place with this party. I would be honored to share my hunting grounds with you all to return the honor you gave me." The Yautja all visibly relaxed, growling their pleasure.

She was rather happy with the arrangement herself. The human bad bloods were in for an interesting few weeks. If they thought she was an annoyance before, they were going to really get upset with five hunters around.

-


-

They looked around the deserted building in amazement. Huge gaping craters littered the floor, turning the smooth poured concrete interior into a shattered moonscape. They were gathered around the largest of the holes, so deep it passed all the way through the foundations and showed the dirt the building had been erected upon at the bottom.

"What the hell did they use, bombs?", Issoti snarled as they examined the destruction. Ito crouched down at the edge of the crater, fingering the surface gingerly, as Wen looked on. Of the three, he was surprisingly the most animated, whistling in awe several times as they toured the deserted warehouse and he took in the scale of the damage.

"Or something", Ito responded, pointing to the hole. "Do you see the glassy appearance on the sides? This is the result of extreme heat. The places in the desert where they tested nuclear weapons back in the Fifties and Sixties? The sand fused into glass."

"You saying someone was throwing nukes around in here?", Wen asked incredulously, as Issoti backed away from the hole nervously. Ito chuckled at the Italian's reaction.

"If this was done by nuclear weapons, there'd be no city to begin with. You can relax, Issoti, you're not going to end up sterile." "Unfortunately" was Ito's unspoken addendum.

"So what happened then, smart ass?" Issoti blustered, trying to regain some semblance of dignity. Ito rose and looked around the warehouse again, calculating. He pointed to great gashes and holes in the walls.

"A lot of firepower was used, all you need to do is look at the holes in the walls to see that." He turned, facing towards the other end of the building. "There's a lot of craters down that end, but the walls are relatively undamaged. This end", turning as he spoke he waved one hand to encompass the area they were in, "has this big hole, and a lot of damage to the walls."

"Yeah, yeah, we kind of noticed that. You going to tell us what it means now, professor?" Ito turned and faced Issoti, his face expressionless.

"I would say that two factions fought here. This was possibly the base being used by one side. The other side it seems entered from the far end and attacked, firing towards their opponents at this end of the warehouse. The ones here fought back, using grenades it seems, as the attackers advanced. The grenade attacks died down as the attackers came closer, then some large explosive device was detonated here."

"There's no bodies" Wen spoke up, surprising them. As they stared at him he looked around. "No bodies, no body parts, no blood. If someone was using grenades, I'd be seeing body parts and blood." Ito shrugged.

"We found no body parts or blood the last time we saw this sort of thing." Issoti looked at him sharply.

"What do you mean 'the last time'?", he demanded angrily, but Wen started to nod his head in agreement.

"You think that the creatures were involved?" Ito nodded, and Issoti looked at the two men, his face getting redder.

"What creatures? What are you two talking about?" Ito turned to face the Italian.

"The aliens that have been attacking our establishments." Issoti looked at both of them, then started laughing. Both men watched impassively until the Italian managed to get control of himself, and he looked at both of them with a mixture of contempt and amusement.

"So you're trying to tell me little green men from Mars are hitting us? I supposed all of this was caused by death rays, huh? Hey! I know! They're in search of really good dentists!" He doubled over laughing even harder than before. They looked at each other, before turning and walking a short distance away from the still-laughing mobster, and spoke in low voices.

"How long do we have to put up with this idiot?" Wen asked, glancing over at the Italian disgustedly as Ito smiled coldly.

"Are you so eager to be rid of our sacrificial lamb?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." He glanced across at the Yakuza boss. "It seems that there has been a lack of attacks recently on my places of business by these mysterious creatures." Ito nodded. "Our Italian friend seems to think I might be involved somehow, I think." Ito knew full well Wen wasn't, but he wasn't going to let go of a possible advantage he had created by saying so.

"As long as he remains in denial of the true cause of the attacks, we will be incapable of combining our three forces to deal with it." Issoti had straightened up again and was making his way across to the pair, wiping his eyes. He was about to launch into another sarcastic remark about the idea that aliens were the enemy when there was a hoarse shout from one corner of the warehouse, quickly cut off.

All three men's bodyguard details quickly surrounded them, guns drawn and pointing outwards in all directions, but there was no further sounds. After a few minutes, Ito motioned to the head of his security, a bald westerner, to investigate. They stood there for several tense minutes as he disappeared into the gloomy shadows at the end of the warehouse where the sound had come from, but relaxed slightly when they saw him re-emerge, although confused when they saw he was dragging a body by the feet.

As he came towards them, he dropped the man's legs on the floor and turned, waiting. They walked over to stand beside him, looking down at the body.

"If", Ito said to the Mafia boss, "you are unwilling to accept that as the explanation of the damage done here, will you at least accept that our opponents possess a large amount of firepower?" Issoti nodded, his face ghost white as he looked down.

"Oh, yeah, I can accept that. This place is a warzone. But little green men? Gimme a break!" Ito blinked, wondering if the man actually had his eyes open, but let it slide for the moment.

"I suggest that we relocate as much as possible to the bait house. We have nowhere else, nothing else capable of withstanding this kind of threat." Wen looked at Ito curiously, wondering what he was up to, but the Yakuza kept his eyes on the Italian, willing him to go along. He needn't have worried, the Italian was beginning to hyperventilate and would agree to almost anything if it means getting out of there right then.

"I agree. Let's make the damned thing Fort Knox, see how well these things do trying to hit that!" Ito looked to Wen, who nodded agreement. Ito turned to the head of his security team and pointed to the body.

"Take him to the bait house, and make sure he's left in a secure place. I will join you there shortly." The balding man nodded once and gestured to one of his men to stay, as the three bosses headed towards the exit, their bodyguards forming tight circles around them. In a short time the only ones left in the warehouse were the two bodyguards and the man on the ground.

And the pale eight-legged creature that covered the man's face, pulsing gently.