This story was written for the 2020 advent calendar.
Valen'kan gently pushed away a large leaf dripping with humidity. For two days now, he pursued cautiously and from a distance his human prey in this suffocating jungle on the edge of the galaxy. He would soon hit his mark and knock his target down. For the better. Ever since he had walked through the Stargate, the wraith had not felt at ease. A diffuse impression of being observed. Spied on. And of course, nothing noticeable anywhere. Except sometimes the air rippling under the heat between the steaming evaporating trunks.
Grunting for at least the hundredth time his frustration of having forgotten his thermal goggles, he checked being still on the human's tenuous trail, and set off again. The man must have been less than a hundred meters in front of him. He was now too close for the runner to craft any elaborate traps. It didn't make his prey any less dangerous. This human had killed a dozen or so wraiths before him.
This appealed to Valen'kan. His victory would be all the more dazzling.
Blaster in hand, he continued his stealthy advance, when suddenly a noise made him freeze, then rush forward roaring with rage.
He would recognize this strangled gurgling sound among a thousand. Someone or something was attacking HIS prey.
The undergrowth was dense, and it took him longer than expected to reach his target. Or what was left of it.
Spinning around, roaring in challenge, Valen'kan searched for his new enemy.
In a few dozens seconds, something had killed his prey, had split its skin and flesh like paper and had torn off its skull and spine, to take them away.
This skull and this spinal column were his! It was his prey! It was his kill!
Still circling, fangs showing, crouching down like the predator he was, Valen'kan scanned around, to no avail. So he roared again, at the top of his lungs, so that whoever the thief was, he would know he was being hunted down and soon dead.
The silence of the terrified jungle fauna answered him first, then a throaty roar echoed.
He smiled. He had been heard. Guiding himself by the sound, he started hunting again. Tonight, it wouldn't be one, but two trophies that he would bring back.
It didn't take long for him to find a first clue. A drop of red blood on the ground. Human blood.
Barely suppressing a satisfied growl, he set off again. His thief was less talented than he first thought and had let his freshly ripped trophy betray it.
Now that he knew what to look for, the trail was easier to follow. Unfortunately, he soon had to realize that what he was hunting was moving from branch to branch, far from the ground, because nothing except the occasional drops of blood had disturbed a single leaf, or left a single footprint in the undisturbed mud before him.
He scanned his surroundings. Nothing but steaming evaporating trunks and, here and there, the air rippling in the heat.
Out of the corner of his eye, he believed to see movement. False alarm. Just the vibrant jungle in the heatwave.
There, another movement! But nothing, once again. Still, he wasn't alone here, Valen'kan would have put his hair at stake.
Here! A barely visible humanoid form.
On closer inspection, there was nothing on the fallen tree trunk.
Still he had not dreamed! The form was gone. So it has moved. His prey was there, and probably invisible.
Spinning around, ready to pounce, he waited, all his senses on edge. He didn't know what that thing was, but the reward would surely be good.
Moving by instinct, he bent down, narrowly dodging the bloody projectile that had just been thrown at him. The head of its original prey.
Slowly, he bent down to pick it up and hung it on his belt. This kind of trophy did not interest him, but leaving it to this thief was out of the question.
Some sort of clicking laughter echoed. He growled haughtily back, then plunged headfirst into a bush, as a plasma bolt shot out of nothingness, charring the trunk he had stood in front of a split second earlier.
Shooting blindly with his blaster, he tried to retaliate, triggering more mocking laughs and another plasma burst.
With an angry hiss, Valen'kan threw himself under the cover of a stump. This time, he was absolutely certain that his opponent was invisible. He had seen the plasma shooting out of nowhere.
But this thing was also alive, he was almost certain of it. His blaster still in hand, he pulled out his life sign detector and smiled. There, less than ten meters from him, slowly advancing, another life form. A glance confirmed that there was nothing there to see. Barely a vague flicker. He shot.
Three precise shots, two of which hit the mark, drawing out of the void an immense humanoid silhouette, the optic camouflage of which was disappearing, revealing a scaly monster, its face obscured by a mask surrounded by long dreadlocks of dark flesh.
The creature reminded the wraith of their own mindless drone soldiers – but lacking the docile stupidity.
Oh, how beautiful that catch would be! Slowly, Valen'kan stood up, pistol aimed. The creature's shoulder cannon took aim too, and they stared at each other longly.
Then, with a small noise that startled the wraith warrior, the plasma cannon folded up, and the creature drew ou of a wrist scabbard a long, serrated double-blade.
If this thing believed he was going to pass up such an advantage… He fired a crippling burst as the creature leaped forward, blade ready.