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Sarah leaned against Odygos, who adapted his position to curl around her. There was nothing human about him, yet still ... no. Nothing human at all. Human wasn't a synonym for familiarity or consideration. It never had been.

This was her first truly conscious thought since she had arrived here. The bull brunt of the hive mind as shared between Kirindi, Eliath, Odygos and Ti'chai-di was hard to get used to, even as the latter remained only an undefined presence. Wading back to her own reasoning, it was time to ask questions.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"~ To explain me what I need to say and wait. ~"

"For what?"

"~ Until it is safe for you to go to the Auton. You must wait until my sister is close enough, she will bring you further. Father must not meet you first. ~"

Sarah had seen some of Karga'te during her vague dream visits, but now that Kirindi had shared with her what she knew of this hunter, this yautja, ... there wasn't distinct fear, but the little chimera worried for good reason. Karga'te didn't seem like someone who would calmly listen to a rational explanation. He had always seen Kirindi as a human with errors. Should he learn that she was far more of the xenomorph, he might assign her the enemy.

"I don't want him to hunt me," she whispered.

Sarah put a hand on her shoulder. " ~ Just hide. Why this whole elaborate ruse? ~"

"~ He will find our tracks even if my mind stays sealed. He already has. ~"

"You shouldn't face him!"

"~ If I were to go to the Auton after me, he would fight them too. Kill them. He doesn't understand they have a Path. He doesn't understand Eliath and Odygos have a Path of their own too. You go to the Auton and speak to them. I will try speaking to my father. ~"

Sarah did understand, even if she didn't want this to make sense. The ordinary hunters were already a problem on their own. Karga'te was no more ordinary hunter.

"Alright. I will try talking to the Auton. When can I leave?"

"~ My sister will not arrive here before my father. Leave before he becomes, Odygos is faster than her. Until then, it is your turn to speak. Please? ~"

"Off course. Do you know where the Internecivus Raptus come from? This story is intertwined with it."

"I don't."

So Sarah repeated what Noasyvé had claimed. It wasn't without a little excitement, despite the mess they were in, but Sarah forgave herself that. One didn't get to relay sagas of destiny every day.

"Billions of years ago, a nation existed for whom technology and biology had become one and the same, they themselves had merged with their creations. They were the Mala'kak. Yet they had not become wiser throughout their time. War tore at their civilization, until they created the monsters that are in your DNA as a desperate means to settle everything.

They were meant as a quick plague only. Their only difference from the other creations, that which made them useful as a weapon, as that they were not linked to the minds of their creators, but to a bestial queen instead. They could not be predicted or hacked. The Mala'kak controlled them through a single queen instead, whom they held physically restrained and threatened into cooperation. Who ever had this Queen Mother had her armies too.

Immune to psychic persuasion, her children heard only what their mother told them. Their very fabric that made them contained a memory of her and no other they would obey.

Their creators kept the Queen Mother and her daughters on a single planet where they lay their eggs for harvest. But, the enemy did not sit still in face of their demise. Desperate they sent invasion after invasion to just obtain one specimen, one living queen. They failed, but soon learned something curious : queens could be bred from mere drone parts, and this led them to believe the design was not as perfect as it appeared. These queens would eventually succumb to the Queen Mother too, but the knowledge was enough. See, the time it took for them to give in was different. What if the Queen Mother was merely the strongest and there were others?

They found them, the prototypes of the Queen Mother, discarded in a place not secure enough. They revitalized them and one was a success, our Noasyvé, the Oldest Mother. She bred slowly and her children were a small number, but she never surrendered to the younger Queen Mother. In fact, she learned how to steal territory within the hive mind, a trait born from flaw and need. She altered the will of the drones to bow to her and in the process she learned to alter herself.

The sin or the virtue of independence tempted her to fight for herself not out of instinct, but desire. She had become aware of herself and her limitations and found she did not have the numbers to win against either her "masters" or the Queen Mother, so she compromised. Her enemies became her allies, for she shared her gift with the Queen Mother. She told her what the threats of her captors meant and taught her the concept of future, though she kept imagination to herself. So the creators noticed too late that the eggs they harvested no longer contained only drones, but queens too.

The Queen Mother led her children in war against their creators. Both sides fell until all of the Mala'kaks' once powerful civilizations had turned to dust. Specks still remain here and there, but not nearly as numerous a mark as the perfect beasts are. Noasyvé remained at odds with the Queen Mother, but their ways never crossed in the flesh.

Across the eons, civilizations came to power and fell under their acid blood, governed by the call of a hidden Queen. The Queen Mother was a filter for the galaxy, inadvertently allowing only the peaceful civilizations to thrive. Greed soon undid all those temped by her destroying angels.

But, then she died. One civilization overcame her, almost by accident. And all her children fell to reckless chaos, and it is because of the Hunters that this chaos spread across all of the galaxy more than ever. The Oldest Mother sought to return, but was thwarted by a single remnant of the old enemy, Shanderah. Exiled to the Void, only recently she was able to return.

She remains, she lives even after the Void, but her body is yet weak and her armies are inbuilt. Shanderah thwarted her once more and she fell in the hands of the youngest empire, the humans. Here we are now. We must free her. Her allies are already underway, but we must be ready."

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The way Sarah sat there, legs crosses and arms hooked before her, reminded Kirindi of meditation. In a way she did exactly that by recollecting her 'saga' to pass on.

Kirindi wasn't the sort of person to sit down and meditate. Things were as they were for her. What she did not know she did not wonder about lest it was some part of her missing, such as her sister. This Oldest Mother, Noasyvé, wasn't part of her hive. She remembered her though, it had been her who had helped her survive. Her father was someone she wasn't obligated to care for, but he was part. Eliath had objected so often to that, but now he was strangely quiet. Like he had nothing left to say.

Sarah got up, the end of her story reached. Not all was told, but time was out.

If her father would tell Kirindi to die, she would not do it, but she would not be able to kill him if he would make that necessary. So she told Sarah as she escorted her outside of the canyon.

Sarah climbed on Odygos' back and held Kirindi's hand for a moment; one of those human gestures that Kirindi understood, Eliath didn't and Karga'te refused to.

"Stay alive," Sarah whispered, before turning to Eliath and the wildness of his mind. His reply was indistinct from Kirindi, for he did seem to agree that Karga'te was a danger to the point of justifying his death, while Kirindi did not. Unlike Odygos, he wasn't attuned to her guidance. Now, Eliath already was building up ferocity, which she couldn't reflect in ... yet.

Compared to Eliath, Odygos was like water, bending around her mind and complying rather than forcing. Sarah and he would head to another gap and hide there. Karga'te would likely pass them by on his way and then they would go to meet Ti'chai-di.

Sarah took a deep breath and curled up on the drone's back, and they were on their way.

Kirindi did not watch them vanish. Though her father no longer shared her mind's eyes, she would take no risk.

Long she waited, until a moon had risen and the stars drowned in the light of mid day. The heat built up and isolated the cold forms of her and the Eliath in the sea of heat.

She could see her father before he could see her. Just a shimmering dot on the far horizon.

He'd taken one of the Auton's vehicles, which he jumped off as soon as he was near. The machine continued aimlessly past them, over the canyon. It soon collided with the ground, screeching in the sand while Karga'te walked closer.

So the world closed around them.

Kirindi stood up.

"Father?"

Basic fear was not and never had been included in her chemical blueprint, but remnants of it remained in her mind's structure. It was not fear for harm, but something much more like the childish bafflement at being threatened by someone one trusts. Even if he sealed his mind from her, she could see the predator in his movement, his eyes, the way his mandibles sometimes flared. It was wrong that this hunter came for her, but she could only accept it, for the alien within her held no space for delusions.

"What is this?" he asked in the tongue of Hunters.

"He is my guardian, father," Kirindi muttered.

"So you are kainde amedha after all. I guess that makes me the yautja."

Years ago there had been a girl named Shioying, a human child who found the wrong toy. It hadn't mattered when she cried and begged, because the humans hadn't understood. Neither had the yautja, but throughout the pain of change, she had been certain he had helped her ... had he?

It didn't matter though. Now he stood before her Kirindi, he just as unable to understand her as when he had the human girl.

Eliath stood up behind her. She didn't have the power to stop him, for he too held no place for delusions. What he knew, that he knew : a hunter had come for the one he was meant to protect. And protect he would, starting with that plasma caster and a well aimed shot of acid blood ...

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Sarah and Odygos emerged from their hiding spot the moment Eliath told them to. Odygos shot off across the grassy plane like a bullet.

Even an alien drone could be driven to exhaustion, if one tried long enough. Odygos would gladly test his limits for her in a run to Auton, perhaps not only because she wanted it, but he too. The trance-like race soon started to feel like running through the sea, and just as soon faded away.

Sarah became aware of Ti'chai-di before she could see her. The sister held no particular interest in Sarah, did not reach out, yet was inescapable all the same. Sarah found herself swept almost away in her chaotic thoughts.

In the shaking air, her stealth form did not become visible for a long time. Even once she uncloaked, she did not stand out in these bright surroundings. Much like how Jonah had once encountered her, a ghost. The queen chimera was like Jonah had described her, an animal or a child desperate for guidance, but not necessarily needing profound affection. However, she was calmer than he had claimed and did not force emotions on her, perhaps because she now had her little sister near.

The two beasts stopped at the same time. From behind the white corona of the queen a tan man jumped off.

Sarah needed a moment to recognize him, for she had only ever seen him in the darkness and different clothes.

"Jake?"

He stopped shortly before Odygos. "Sarah ... I can't believe it."

"You better," Sarah said as she staggered off the drone.

"Yeah ... Shadhahvar was correct for once. Seriously, wow. Where's Kirindi?"

"She's diverting that hunter to buy me time. I need to get to the Auton and explain them everything now."

"No, she's hoping he'll see her again," Jake muttered. "I don't think he'll be able to hurt her, not from what I've seen."

"You think? I've witnessed this twice already. It's Hive Rejection, a psychological response of people who are forced into the hivemind. Humans have a part of their brain that perceives telepathic information in stagnation, but it can be woken up when put under exposure. People who are forced will go into a frenzied rebellion once they reach the phase directly in between dependence and individuality."

Jake took her at the shoulder and a shock went through her. "Only one I'm seeing getting hazy is you. Are you alright?"

No, for so many reasons, but none of them were telepathic. She brushed his hand off.

"He is trying to kill her already," she whispered. "I willingly entered the hive so it never happened with me, but it happened to my old friend Jonah, it happened in Enigma II to Schrödinger, it happened just before I left the station to Jay and it happened to the yautja that betrayed Syvé!"

"Right, lots of names I don't know what to do with. Look, lady, wake up and think clearly. We can't just go to the city, they're n—"

"He thinks he's being forcefully controlled. He responds with the opposite emotion of what he experiences, he doesn't want to so he does, and that's the real fake thing and ... and ..."

And what? Sarah didn't even know how she knew half of what she said.

Jake sighed. "You guys are lost. Your messenger can't even handle this situation."

"What? I just need to talk to the Auton!"

"Sarah, if those androids learn about Karga'te fighting an alien drone, they're gonna open fire. I know these people. The android that helped us? He wiped his memory to protect these drones. They're not on your side, we have to be careful."

"They have to be, they've got to stop the fight and —"

Jake and rubbed a hand through sweaty hair. "Right, right ... maybe we can isolate one of them before the whole mass comes, talk to that one ... you able to handle a weapon?"

"No."

Jake pulled his cargo off of Ti'chai-di, showing her a few guns he'd brought along. "Then just help me recharge, maybe you can read my mind on how to do it or something. I'll floor a few guys and you can drag them over here and talk to them. Find some shelter too..."

She heard him talk, but it didn't mean much anymore. It had started.

"Stop it you fool! Stop it!" Sarah screamed. Her eyes became wide and started to hit around her. Jake clutched the weapons close and backed away. When she saw him draw away, she made a jump for it.

"Give me that! We have to go back, stop him, stop him!" But Jake only held onto the weapon higher. Sarah wrenched at it with inhuman strength and got it loose, but it was snatched from her hands by even greater strength. Odygos would not be caught in the frantic despair of Ti'chai-di and Sarah.

He tossed it back to Jake. With some difficulty, he explained at the chimeras here would not be able to help for the time being. But maybe he could?

· · · · · · ·

"Look at the drone fighting for his queen!" Karga'te mocked.

Kirindi had hunched up like a ball, peering at sand that melted in her blood and a few of her tears. She clutched her left arm close, part of the skin had ripped off and revealed the dark exoskeleton underneath. Eliath had not been quick enough to intercept Karga'te, and she herself had not had enough ... will? Comprehension? Or perhaps, it was denial after all. It didn't matter. It shouldn't matter. He'd seen what telepathic monsters disguised as people could do, and eventually they would.

In mind she screamed for him to listen, but Karga'te heard only encouragement for the monster before him. Her guardian, who had formed a wall between him and his prey. Today, he hunted those who could think.

His brother once had taught him that if one got stuck in a hive, if nothing else works, then kill the queen. He didn't care for the details anymore, now he wanted to do only what he was said to be born for. To hunt. For once it felt right.

If only the wall let him pass.

Karga'te feigned darting aside and Eliath's movements changed to catch him to the right, but Karga'te jumped overhead instead. Faster than Eliath expected, he had a moment of advantage. Only a moment. Eliath twisted half over himself and dug his teeth in Karga'te's legs.

Karga'te collided with the ground. Eliath couldn't quite bite through the metal, but refused to let go, waiting for his acid to eat through. Karga'te grabbed for one of the blades at Eliath's arm and tore his fingers open trying to unbalance him, to no avail. The jaws dug deeper through the metal.

Better some than all.

He set his free foot against the shoulder of the xenomorph and kicked off at the same moment he drove his wrist blades into the alien's jaw, a familiar trick.

Eliath shrieked and stumbled away, flesh tearing loose. Karga'te was back on his feet, not without effort, only to be pummeled by Eliath. In the blink of falling back, he locked eyes with Kirindi.

She didn't hate him, she just grieved.

Queens did not have faces to look sorrowful and yautja were not supposed to have eyes to acknowledge that. But the proof that the creature there was a queen, it was before him, did it not? It was digging its razors into his flesh and claws tried to break his weapons, its blood burned through his skin.

Why wasn't he dead yet?

The thing pinned him to the ground, then grabbed his arm and twisted loose the blade gauntlet; it knew how to. Xenomorph weren't supposed to be this smart.

He'd been a fool driven by rage to pick a fight with a thinking xenomorph. Taking on a praetorian as a lone hunter who still did not have experience with them, that was how the fools were weeded out.

The thing hauled him up by his arm and threw him away away from Kirindi. He couldn't land with this leg and rolled further, almost into the canyon. His enemy dropped on all fours and chased right after him. Yet still he did not strike to kill, instead throwing him into the gap.

Karga'te barely registered the fall, but the collision with the ground sent a dull thump through his body. There he lay still. A shadow in the light above indicated the drone and how soon he'd be down here and ...

The canyon was deep, he had bounced off extrusions from the wall several times. He should have broken something by now, shouldn't he?

Kirindi still whispered in the back of his mind, still pleaded, but she said something a little different now. Eight years ... memories surfaced from across that time. There had been a few times here and there where he'd fallen, or been thrown, or moved wrong. There had been pain, but nothing too bad ... he's shrugged it off with resilience, or gravity being lesser her. Thinking on medical things wasn't his thing.

Kirindi said she wasn't the only monster here disguised as people.

As if to drive it home further, the xenomorph began to climb down the wall, jumping from one to the opposite. Its blood and tail loosened rocks all over the place until it collapsed. With a torn but unbroken body, Karga'te struggled to get out of the way, but soon the chunks grew too heavy and he was half buried.

Quite at ease, his enemy climbed down to the trapped yautja with taunting slowness. He stepped onto the yautja and with a few swipes, he cleared away the rubble before Karga'te face, releasing his arms. All the while, he broke a crude mental bridge to the yautja's mind and compelled him to simply look at his injuries. He refused, but the will was almost like the scent of flesh on a predator, as if tugging his instincts ... he had to look.

The removal of the gauntlet had peeled off his skin along, but most of the muscle tissue was intact. The xenomorph closed a claw around it and tore loose a his skin from wrist to elbow.

Look again.

Unlike flesh and more like some elastic yet hard matter it drew together, bound by strings and an artificial row of lines ... He'd seen similar once.

Gripped by panic he scratched open his arm further, feeling the same hard biomechanic fabric under his deceptively normal skin. His blood was more yellow than it should be, and there was less of it.

The xenomorph stepped off him and turned around on all fours, so that Karga'te could see the resemblance between their arms.

There and then, he realized with an eight year delay that he might've died back then.

It only acted as a xenomorph. They did not kill their own unless for a purpose. Another thing Nra'tex-ne had taught him. It was against its instincts to do this. Unlike a xenomorph, despite those instincts it wanted to see him dead. He was a traitor to his kin, something that should be impossible for this very hive. It didn't act on it, but it wanted to and made sure Karga'te knew this. It wasn't Kirindi's orders.

Xenomorph were not supposed to have individuality.

It replied wordlessly, it had individuality and was meant for it.

Just like everything here.

All the same kin.

Rage possessed Karga'te, not born from honor or instinct, but his basic sense of self. He wanted that monster dead, as if it would undo this transformation.

Roaring coarsely, Karga'te struggled free from the rocks, but it only stepped back and watched, openly sharing a sense of amusement at his pathetic efforts. On damaged legs Karga'te threw himself on the xenomorph, but with mocking ease he was knocked down again. Trying to tackle the sun might have been just as fruitful.

Almost as if hearing a real voice, it called the yautja out as one of his kind, yet a disgrace; like an echo of treachery that Karga'te had committed years ago. Then, that had been for, rather than of his family. Why would it respect him, if he had forsaken this right by trying to take the life of the child they both should protect?

But it did not mind being his replacement. Simultaneously it tried to provoke to and discourage the yautja from returning to the hivemind. In the midst of its relentless taunting, Karga'te saw only one thing clearly : his enemy had a solid Path and a name of his own. It had been given to both and he liked them.

Karga'te on the other hand saw every reason to dislike his own path, if his self-made fate meant to die on this dirty floor in the earth.

A soft sandy noise sounded behind him, and the xenomorph took a few steps back. Kirindi's two-toed feet appeared aside him, a few meters away. She knelt down, still clutching her injured arm. Her large dark eyes gently but wearily looked at him. Eliath came to stand behind her, feather blades still extended should he try anything, but he also withdrew his mental hold on Karga'te.

Karga'te was painfully reminded of a scenario long ago, where he should have been in the praetorian's position.

"His name is Eliath. His path is only to protect me," Kirindi whispered. "Odygos is the name of my other new friend. He path is also to protect, Sarah in specific. I can explain more, will you hear now? Please?"

"I don't care," he eventually said, but the very fact he spoke betrayed the lie. He did want to know.

"Sarah chose her path because ... I don't know. She never told me. But she wants to free the Oldest Mother because she thinks she deserves it," Kirindi continued. "My sister, she has no Path she can tread, but the Oldest can give her one, she hopes."

Having said that, she crawled closer and reached out her damaged hand. Karga'te didn't wait to find out what for, he dragged himself away quickly. She withdrew her hand, but didn't back away. He reached the opposite of the canyon, slumped down against the wall. They eyes met still. He couldn't read her.

"You are her child too, of the Oldest Mother, for she thought you'd follow a path aside of me any way. That's why you didn't die that day. Meke'tor was a mistake, that's why he never changed inside. Like you, like Sarah ..."

A soft telepathic push tried to persuade him to open up, for she wanted to let him receive in clarity. Little facts from his own memory crept up and supported the strange awareness of this hivemind; like the way he had gotten involved in the egg case, like the times he could have died on this planet, like a prayer he had never spoken, asking for a second chance.

This was not the sort of second chance he had in mind, but it was a similar path nonetheless ... and again, he was failing it. His mental defenses faltered as those memories returned, of his brother and the children and the futile desire for revenge that had led him where he had ended up ...

The moment he let go of his resistance, he learned nothing was forcing him into anything.

"What about you?" he asked, with nothing but weariness left in his tone.

Kirindi smiled a little and said, "I'm here."

She crossed the space between them. There, she hunched before him, closing her eyes and gently setting her forehead against his, as she always did with her sister.

"Father, I am here and now. Will you know me again?"

Karga'te let go of a breath he had been holding. So the Hunter passed away from his brief existence and with him the sight of prey. Her silent laughter replaced it, along with her embrace. For once, it didn't feel like humiliation.

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