xXx

Xerxes watched Aleris go down the hallway until the automatic door shut. He turned back to Hiram and Tangoroa.

"We will be landing on a planet to collect samples. Hiram, I'm putting you in charge of analyzing them in the labs. Tangoroa, I'm putting your on guard duty while the team is out on the planet. Ok?"

"Why are there going to be guards on the planet?" Tangoroa asked

"This planet was once infested with Kainde Amedha" Xerxes informed them

"Are there any Kainde Amedha left on the planet?" Hiram was just a little worried

"Our sensors don't show any life forms on the planet"

xXx

The dark, lonely hallways were starting to grow on her. No sounds except for the soft humming of the ships electrical machines working. It was calming for her. She couldn't explain it, she just felt at home here. Down a couple of hallways and quite a bit of day dreaming, Aleris realized something. She was completely and utterly lost.

She looked down all of the hallways, hoping she would remembered which one she had gone down, but they all looked the same and none had any marks or lights that distinguished them from the others. She decided she would just continue to walk the way she thought she was going. What harm could come from it?

Down one hallway and down another. She couldn't keep one hallway from another. They blended together to be as one.

Aleris stopped, unwilling to get anymore lost and sat down with her back against the wall and legs outstretched. She didn't know what to do. She looked up, trying to come up with some witty plan like she had done time and time before. Above her was a ventilation cover. She could go up it and find Hiram again, but that was probably a bad idea. Trouble could be waiting for her at the other end.

She would be safer if she just stayed here. But if she did that, than a Yautja could come by and start a fight for no reason. Hiram had explained to her earlier in the day that by her being human, it meant that the other Yautja on the ship would challenge her time and time again and that she would have to be prepared for it.

So that still left her with three choices: Stay here and be in danger of attack, walk around and be in even more danger, or escape into the shafts and just hope to hell that she doesn't fall into another pit fight.

That would be really bad.

Some heavy foot steps echoed down to Aleris. She knew they weren't that close, but she heard them like they were. She waited a small second before reacting; making sure it was not a friend. A Yautja walked down a perpendicular hallway and turned towards her. She could tell he was a warrior because he wore the mask that covered his face. He stopped short of seeing her sitting on the ground.

Smelling the air, he knew she was the Ooman everyone was talking about. There were stories circulating about her. That she was a Kainde Amedha and Pyode Amedha cross. She was supposed to be some great warrior that saved Yautja form another clan, but also attacked several from this clan. He had to inspect this threat closer.

He took slow steps towards her. Aleris saw this and stood up, also slowly. She didn't want to be caught off guard by some random Yautja that decided to challenge her. He stopped about ten feet from her, examining her.

'This couldn't be the thing that almost killed a Yautja' He though to himself

Aleris took a small step back. She could feel the Yautja sizing her up. This situation just went from really bad to very, very worse. She couldn't get into another fight. Xerxes could really punish her if she did. She already has attack four other Yautja, anymore would put her in a bad light.

The Yautja saw her take the small step back. He could smell her fear and could practically see her muscles tense up. She was afraid of him. This made him laugh. She was supposed to be some strong creature and she was afraid of him.

Upon closer inspection of her body, he noticed the warrior scar on her cheek. This angered him in a way he had never felt before. She was weak and small and yet she was still given the mark of a true warrior.

He felt it was his duty to make sure this Ooman was worthy enough to posses the scar or exterminate her in the process. He crouched down to the floor, posed for attack.

This was now unbelievably bad for Aleris. She tried to avoid a confrontation, but that had failed. She had no choice but to fight the Yautja.

Aleris relaxed her body. For some reason, she knew the best way to fight a Yautja in a hand to hand combat with minimal damage to herself. It was strange, this power of hers. Every time she had to fight a Yautja or felt threatened by one, she would flashback to a battle she had never been in or seen. She had strategies she never knew of already planned out.

The Yautja jetted like lighting towards Aleris. Just before he would have tackled her, she jumped into the air and attached to the ceiling. She watched him skid to a stop and shoot his head around, looking for his prey.

He saw her on the ceiling. How quant. She could even scale walls like a Kainde Amedha. At least she would be a formidable challenge.

He jogged towards her, wrist blade ready. When he got to her, he jumped up into the air, stabbing at the Ooman with his blade. She, of course, dodged his attacked, causing his blade to lodge itself into the metal ceiling.

Aleris crawled away from the attacking Yautja. She didn't want to fight him, but she was having a hard enough time controlling her body at the moment. It was running on instincts she didn't even know she had.

The Yautja dislodged his blade and darted his head to find the girl. He saw her, running from him. That made him laugh. She was no great warrior. He started after her lighting speed.

She skittered to a ventilation shaft. She couldn't explain it, but she knew she was safe there. She ripped the cover off like so many times before and jumped into it, disappearing into the darkness.

The Yautja skid to a stop under the shaft opening. He changed his view from one to another, searching for her, but she was gone. He would have to go else where to find the Ooman and eliminate her. He was doing this for the clan. They could not suffer such a dishonor.

xXx

The Yautja ship landed softly on the deserted planet. It shook the ground with a hard landing. An airlock door opened and a Yautja scientist walked off onto the planet, escorted by two Yautja guards, heavily armed.

The guards stopped short and put theirs backs together. The scientists walked out a ways from the guards and crouched down by a huge boulder. He took out a metal cylinder and started to collect some soil samples.

The Yautja guards watched the area carefully, but saw nothing. Nothing moved. But behind the ship lay what they were waiting for.

The landing ship shook the ground and woke something up from a long slumber. A lone Kainde Amedha slowly crawled out of a hole next to the ship. It hissed, not sure what had just happened. It slowly crawled up onto the ship, inspecting it.

It was startled when it felt a Queen. Its Queen was killed so very long ago. He was nothing without a Queen to please, but there was one here now. It now had a meaning for existence.

It started to search franticly for an opening within the ship. It could feel the Queen was scared. She was under attack. It screeched out into the dead of the dark.

The Guards tense up, ready to shoot anything that moved, but they saw nothing. They stayed ready for attack.

Two more aliens crawled out of the whole the first came out of. They looked around at their surroundings slowly. They also sensed the scared Queen within the metal fortress. The first alien chattered something to them. They quickly jumped up onto the ship and joined the searched for an opening.

A vent door opened and steam exited the ship. It caught the attention of the three aliens. They quickly ran for the vent before it close. They ran into it, single file. The last got into it just before the vent closed.

The three Yautja ran back onto the ship. They didn't feel safe on a planet that probably still had Kainde Amedha on it. They felt safer on the ship.

xXx

Aleris crawled through the vents quietly. She needed to find Hiram or Tangoroa to help her. They were Yautja. They would be able to reason with it. Hopefully.

She slowed to a stop in the vent. There were heavy footsteps beneath her. She stayed still and slowed her breathing, hoping they wouldn't hear her. They left. Good. She slowly began to crawl again. Aleris looked down a vent cover to see what was down there.

Nothing. The same metal floors and walls like everywhere else. Carefully now, she crawled over the cover. The last thing she wanted was to fall through into another one and find herself in another bad situation. Or rather, one worse than this one.

A spear shot through the vent cover right at Aleris. Before she could react, it pierced her skin and went straight through her before lodging itself into the ceiling above. Aleris screamed out in pain and it soon evolved into a deafening shriek. Her blood spilt onto the vent below her. She lost her grip and fell through the vent cover and flat onto the floor.

A bellowing laugh echoed past her. She looked up to the laughing figure. It was the Yautja from before, only this time, he did not have his mask on. He had been tracking her though vents and shot her down with a spear gun. Damn him.

He reached down to her. Carefully, he wrapped his fingers around her neck and pulled her off the floor. He brought her up to eye level. He glared at her. She was no warrior.

Aleris reached out to the Yautja. He didn't have a clue what she was doing. She grabbed onto one of his tusks and pulled towards her quickly. He yelled out in pain as green spilled down his face. Aleris took the time to jump up onto the ceiling and go back into the shaft. When he recovered, she was already down the shaft and beyond his reach.

Aleris did her best to crawl through the shafts with little sound. She held her wound with one hand, trying desperately to stop the bleeding and crawled along with the other. But not before long, she had to stop. The pain was becoming too severe to continue on. Gasping for breathe, she sat on her knees, trying to think of what to do next.

Within the silence she heard them. The voices of Kainde Amedha were calling out for her. The voices told her they were here to help her. Here to obey her every command. That was the first sign of relief she had had in some time.

'How in Hades did Kainde Amedha get on the ship?' She asked herself

She quickly dismissed the thought. It couldn't matter less how they got here, but the fact they were here was good enough for her. She called out for them breathlessly. She was in no shape to do much else.

The Kainde Amedha quickly came to her side. They saw she was wounded, badly. Quickly, they grabbed her and drug her away. They were taking her probably the safest place they could find. Their last queen had died this way. They weren't about to let this one die the same way. They needed to get her well again before the creatures attacked her again.

xXx