Jennifer's Diary Log

Sept 18, 2621

We held out for as long as we could, but despite our best efforts their numbers were too great for us to deal with. Fortunately, thanks to Hadrick and Ch'ris' leadership, we were able to mitigate casualties. In fact, I'm very sure we didn't lose anybody because of them. Despite that however, it seemed that the xenomorphs would still overwhelm us. Suddenly however, they screeched in terror before retreating back to their hive. Even for how far away it was, we could still see the flash of the explosion. He did it. I thought. Jon had done it, he'd destroyed the hive. Now the xenos had abandoned the fight to save their home. Many of the marines and the yautja, began to cheer as they saw the creatures flee. I wasn't laughing with them though. Jon had sacrificed himself so that we could win.

Once we were sure the colony was safe, I began to get my things together. I was going to find Jon. I know, it seemed pointless and stupid. How could he have survived the blast? Still, there had to be a chance...

"What are you doing, Jenny?" Rachelle asked noticing me as I gathered together all of my equipment.

"I'm going to the hive." I replied.

"Jenny..." Rachelle said looking like she was about to say something. I could tell just what she was thinking, and she knew as well just by the look I gave. But she could also tell that that wasn't going to stop me. Finally after a short pause she spoke, "Your leg is broken. I'm not letting you go alone." She told me.

"Rachelle, please! I have to find him!" I protested.

"I understand, but I will not let you go alone." Rachelle repeated. "I'm going to get Ch'ris, and we will all go together." She added before she left. Rachelle returned with her mate and a small group of marines and yautja. After commandeering a dropship, along with some medical equipment, we set out. There was no chance we would need to use it, but just in case... There's still a chance... he has to be alive still! He has to be! C-Could he? I thought optimistically. I can remember giving Ch'ris and Rachelle a hopeful look as we flew towards the smoldering hive. They didn't share my enthusiasm. No, there's no way he could have survived... That thought came to me regretfully. God... Dear... Merciful God in Heaven... please... Please don't do this to him... Don't let him go please... I prayed as tears began to trickle down my eyes. It was the only thing I could do. I'm sorry... I'm so so sorry... for everything... Please Dear Heavenly Father... don't make him pay for my mistakes... please... I beg you... don't make him go...

After a few short minutes, we made it to the facility that the hive had taken residence in. Despite how tremendous the explosion had been, the facility, was still standing. Don't get me wrong, it was destroyed, well beyond any kind of repair, but the structure was still there. Maybe... I thought hopefully as we searched.

"Hey! We've got something over here!" One of the marines called out, standing next to a long stretch of debris which looked like it'd come from another building. Wasting no time, we came to see what they'd found. It was Jon and Daddy...

Dad... Dad's body had been burned ,almost to a crisp, and his chest had been crushed by a large piece of debris, the bones in his ribs jutted out from his sides. Jon... my poor Fire Angel looked like he'd been put through a blender. His body was scratched up beyond recognition, his right arm was twisted unnaturally, the bone in his right leg was sticking out, and his lower torso had a huge hole in it. There could be no denying it... He was dead... He'd gone as far as he could go... Despite the weight of his limits... he did his best and fought past them... he did for us... but he couldn't go on forever... only as far as he needed to... for us... The most unnerving part about it was the peaceful smiles they wore on their faces. I don't know what happened... or why... but... they... they... they were... they were just so happy... The sight of their mangled corpses immediately had me in tears. I fell to my knees and began to cry. They both were gone now... all because of me... I'd made a terrible mistake... and although... although I tried to fix it... I... I was too late... Daddy... and Fire Angel... they were both gone... and it was all my fault... and there was nothing I could to do bring them back...

"I'm sorry... I'm so so sorry..." I wept painfully over their disfigured bodies. "I did this to you... this is all my fault... I'm sorry..."

"I'm sorry... Mei-hswei." Ch'ris spoke as he knelt down with me.

But crying and saying sorry wasn't going to bring them back though. Nothing would. I had reaped what I had sowed, but they were the ones to suffer for it most. It should have been me... Dad had deserved to be punished ,yes, but if it hadn't had been for my incompetence he wouldn't have gone as far as he had... Maybe he could've been stopped before he did all of this... And Jon... What did he do to deserve this?... Why did he have to pay for a mistake that wasn't his?! Why did he have to die in such a painful way?! Why?! He wasn't even a full grown adult yet, he was still a teenager... he was still just a kid... Why did he need to be put through all of this?! What did he do to deserve to live through all this pain... all this suffering?! Why ,Dear God? Why?... But there was no use complaining about it now. Tears and regret weren't going to bring him back. What was done had been done, and there was nothing that could be done to undo it... However...

Before we counted Jon as being dead, Ch'ris and I felt something. It was a short weak rising in his chest. It was small ,barely even noticeable, but I could feel it. Ch'ris had felt it too. He pressed his fingers down on Jon's wrist, while I gently rested my ear to his chest. He was breathing! He was still alive! Ch'ris confirmed it after he felt at Jon's pulse.

"We've got him! Get that stretcher over here, now!" One of the marines bellowed. The others wasted no time, quickly, but carefully laying his body down across the stretcher, before carting him over to the dropship. Once inside, the marines immediately hooked him up to a rebreather, while the yautja helped sow up his wounds. For the injuries that were too severe, Jon was hooked up a device with tubes on it that feed the blood he was losing back into his body. I can remember crying on Rachelle's shoulder with her supporting arm wrapped around me comfortingly as we watched. Thank-you merciful Heavenly Father... Thank-you so so much... I thought ,gratefully.

"Come on everybody, get your asses in here! Let's get this bird in the air! We've got a marine dying back here!" A marine shouted ,pounding on the back of his seat as he did so.

"Is he alright? Is he going to-?" I asked the marine tearfully.

"He's pretty beat up, Miss Weyland. It's a miracle he's still alive. We've done the best we can, but we can't tell if he's gonna make it or not." The marine told me. "He'll be better once he's in the ER. So will the rest of us. I don't wanna be here when the bugs decide to go for round two." He added.

"Get us back to the facility, now." I ordered wiping my teary face as I did.

"Right on it." He said before commanding everyone who was still outside the dropship to get back in. After everyone was strapped down, and Jon's unconscious body was secure, we took off. We all remained silent during the flight. Most of ,if not all of, us watched Jon carefully. I kept my eyes on the rebreather, watching the bag on it inflate and deflate with each careful breath Fire Angel took.

Once we were back at the facility, I had all of the doctors and nurses there were ready for Jon in the medical bay. While they were at it, they also had me strapped down so they could attend to my leg. I was still focused on Jon though. For as excruciating as the procedure was on my leg, I was fighting not to have a heart attack, as I watched the doctors preform surgery on Jon. Please help them Heavenly Father! Please don't let him die! I prayed the whole time I watched. There were some very close calls, but ultimately they succeeded in stabilizing Jon's condition. I guessed it was just the sudden relief from all the stress, but I passed out a short time after Jon's surgery ended.

I woke up twelve hours latter, with my leg hanging ,all wrapped in bandages. The rest of my body felt worn out, but I just ignored it. I peered over at Jon's bed, he was still lying there ,unconscious.

"Have a nice nap, sleeping beauty?" Hadrick spoke from the other side of the room, startling me when he spoke. He'd just entered the room.

"Hadrick?"

"Miss Weyland." He responded in his usual gruff tone.

"How is Jon?"

"He's alive, barely. Thank the Merciful Master." He said as approached. He paused turning to look over at his son. "He's arm's broken in three different places. His femur snapped like a twig, his left shoulder's been dislocated, and his spine is wrecked." Hadrick continued.

"Merciful Master!" I whispered.

"That's not the worst part. His ribs were crushed, and both of his lungs nearly collapsed." Hadrick paused again "He's in a coma. Doctors say he might not wake up." He added. I gave Hadrick a terrified look. He returned my look with an unsure glance. Even though his composure was cooled, I could tell ,even past the scars on his face, that he was just as worried as I was. "Your Dad told me about you two." Hadrick said, sounding almost like he was asking it.

I looked back at Jon's comatose figure, before feeling tears began to break. "It's all my fault." I responded.

"No. No, it's not. I'm just as much to blame." He said drifting his gaze towards the ground. There was a quiet in the room for a brief moment, before I began to hear Hadrick grunt like he was in pain. "Damn it! How did I forget about him?! How did I forget about my own boy?! Why did I do that to him?!" He whispered, struggling not to make his grief visible, and failing.

"Hadrick?" I called him, before grasping his hand comfortingly. That only made him more upset.

"He... he... He's all the family I've got left... After my wife died..." He struggled not to cry, as tears began to run. After a couple seconds of whispered sobbing, he got up and sat beside Jon. "I'm sorry son... I'm sorry..." He wept as he held Jon's hand. I wished I could've gotten up and done the same, but I couldn't. So I just laid their and silently cried with him.

Over the next week, Hadrick, Ch'ris, and Rachelle, came in and visited the both of us. By the end of the week my leg had healed well enough that I could leave. I had to have crutches for two weeks after that, but it was better than uselessly lying on my back to wait for it to fully heal. Although all of the fighting was over, there was a lot of work that needed to be done still. Repairs needed to be made to the colonies, Beth needed a new body, and we both needed to tell the truth. That last part was a little pointless, especially after Dad showed his true colors, but we still had to make things right somehow. Needless to say, none of the colonists were to happy to see me or Beth when we did that, but thankfully they listened long enough to hear what we had to say, and none of them tore us limb from limb while we apologized. That and even if they tried, the marines still had our backs.

The reconstruction both to the colonies and to the marines was long, and extremely expensive. Fortunately, Daddy left all of his stock to me and Beth, that and all the other major stockholders in the board of directors had to pay in too, since most of them helped Dad with his projects. Beth and I didn't care about the money though. Dad had also left us with the burden of cleaning up his mess, so in all honesty, we owed the marines their due. Thankfully ,I guess because we weren't like Dad, they were a lot more understanding than we expected them to be. They worked like dogs ,day in day out, helping with reconstruction, and if not for them, the colonies would still be in ruins.

The Drukathi had only shown themselves to the marines and to the yautja, and since they were a very secretive group of aliens, they didn't want to stick around long enough for the colonists to become aware of their presence. Despite that though, they did stay and help long enough to help whittle down a few small hives in some of the other colonies before leaving.

The Schroalatic clan ,however, they did nothing to help us. Even though they'd made their presence known to us, they still felt it best to leave as quickly as possible. Cowards.

As for Ch'ris, Rachelle, and their clan, they were the only ones who stayed and helped us. The colonists also weren't to please about having yautja in their settlements, not after everything the bad bloods did to them. Despite the backlash, they endured. They felt they owed it to Jon and the marines for all the help they gave them. Besides they couldn't go home even if they wanted to. When Bri-ci'all and Zell-oah had taken over, and imprisoned them, they destroyed their settlement while they did so. The place was so beyond repair they decided not to even try and rebuild. Reconstruction had been very difficult even before that, since none of the other clans came to help. Although they never asked, Ch'ris and Rachelle knew it was because of their clan's dishonorable past that none of the other clans came to help. I wasn't to surprised about it either. Hadrick and I allowed them to stay with us while reconstruction was taking place. Although it was a little difficult, the Vall-kcor'sta clan, and the marines got along well. Within about a month, New Hadley's, and most of the other colonies were almost completely rebuilt.

After that, things just mellowed out. I was still busy with a lot of other things, namely my work in the labs, attending company meetings with the other stockholders, and focusing some of my assets into constructing a new colony for the marines after finding out what happened to the Sulaco colony. I was also bombarded with numerous political issues both with the colonists and with the New U.S. government back on Earth concerning the secretive work Dad was up to. Thankfully, Hadrick and some of his friends had me and Beth's back on that abysmal topic.

Despite all of that, my focus was still on Jon, as was just about everybody else. Whenever I left the facility, I always made sure some one was there to watch him. I was just as protective of him as Dad was with me. Fire Angel had suffered enough, I didn't want anything else to happen to him. I wasn't the only one. The Vall-kcor'sta clan had had a change in their faith, and began worshipping God. They still believed and worshipped their gods, but they believed it was Jon's deity that had been merciful to them, and allowed Jon to come back from the dead and save them. I found myself praying with them on more than one occasion, and I even began attending church with Hadrick at the marines' chapel. My guilt had caused my faith to return. I know it seems selfish, and I agree, it felt that way. I didn't deserve forgiveness, yet I was asking for it. I just wanted to make things right. Despite my efforts to repent, our prayers went unanswered. That didn't stop Ch'ris, and Rachelle, and Hadrick, and it certainly didn't stop me. If God hadn't allowed him to die when we found him, I knew He would still be listening. Still He was taking his time answering it.

Whenever I wasn't busy, I was in the medical bay, watching Jon sleep. The doctors had performed surgery on him a couple more times, carefully repairing the bones in his arm, leg, shoulder, ribs, and spine, but despite that it still did nothing to wake him up, nor did it make it any less painful to see. This hadn't been the first time I'd seen him like this, however this was the longest. It was always so painful to see, all of the tubes running into and out of his arms and legs, all the stitches and wires affixed to his chest and head, and that stupid breathing apparatus strapped to his mandibled face. He just looked like he was in so much pain, yet at the same time he seemed so at ease. It just... It just didn't feel right. Jon shouldn't have been relegated to a hospital bed, he should have been awake, he should see what he's done. The colonist should be thanking him right now, we all should have been, and should have the privilege to hear it from us. Jon should have been relaxing, enjoying himself, reading his Bible, listening to his favorite music, or even watching the Friday the 13th series he loved so much! Not sleeping away what could potentially be the last moments of his life uselessly on a hospital bed with all of this equipment attached to him, just waiting for the heart monitor to flat line! In some ways this was worse than him just dying! That way he at least wouldn't have to suffer through the rest of his life like a vegetable!

I thought about it several times... to just end it all... to do the merciful thing and just let him go... that way he wouldn't suffer anymore... But whenever I did... something would always stop me. This strange voice in my head speaking to me, telling me to keep holding on. "Don't worry Jenny. He'll be alright. Be patient. Nothing will happen to him." It'd been a long time since I'd heard that voice. Despite the never ending tumult I found myself in, I was suddenly put at ease. I felt like everything would be okay.

Sometimes whenever this would happen I'd accidentally fall asleep next to him, and I'd have these dreams, almost like memories. Memories of the times he and I were together, when we were still in love. The times when he would hold me close to him with his warm arms, and nuzzle his mandibles through my hair, adorably purring as he smelled it with his forked tongue. Merciful Master, I missed those moments so much. But I didn't deserve to have it back... If I'd only see him wake up and live the life he should have, with the woman he deserved and a family of his own that loved him as much as I knew he would love them, that would be more than enough for me.

As time continued to pass, the work became less stressful, but my life was still a mess. In better news, Ch'ris and Rachelle were going to be parents. Rachelle would be due with a litter of pups in about four to five, maybe even six months, the standard pregnancy time for yautja females. The idea of my friend having babies was just the most adorable thing I'd ever heard. If I'm being honest I think I was more excited about it than Ch'ris and Rachelle were. Also Stacy and "Benji" ,the little girl and boy Jon had saved, had found another family. She actually told me herself. No, Hadrick wasn't their new dad, although it felt like it, especially while she was visiting. She wanted to know how Jon was. He was her hero, and I could easily understand. At first, Stacy hated the marine, especially since her real parents had been killed by a marine. The only light in her life was her brother "Benji", at least that was until her revelation at New Hadley's Hope. Now she thought differently of the marines.

"Is he going to be alright, Jennifer?" She addressed me as Hadrick and I took her to see him. Although she was just a preteen she was actually very mature, and had something of a mouth to her. Despite that she was respectful, and polite. We'd done this for her on numerous occasions, but Stacy never got tired of it. She wouldn't leave until she knew he was okay.

"I... I... I don't know, Stacy." I answered her.

"You know he's been like this for almost two months, kid." Hadrick told her.

"And you think that's going to stop me?" Stacy spoke back in a smartassed tone. Like I said, the kid had a mouth.

Suddenly the facility's emergency lights kicked on and the sirens began blaring loudly.

Warning. Catastrophic containment failure in Area A-2. All personnel follow laboratory evacuation procedures. All security teams please report to Medical Bay. Use of lethal force unauthorized.

"Oh, shit!"

Alright done with another entry, and for once I'm not to late about it either. Thank-you NeverNeverGirl for the comment on the last entry I posted. I know I don't need to go to fast on these, but I have some other ideas for stories I want to work on, and unfortunately for me, I have only seven months before I go on my mission, and that's not a lot of time for me. I am going to be gone for two years after that, and although I may come back and do some more work, I don't expect to get any writing work done in that time. Also thank-you for the comments and the criticism on the typo errors. They really helped me out a lot, and it's partially because of you that I've come as far as I have. Thank you. (Also I sent you a message on the PM. I'm just wondering if you got it?)