Aliens: Intermission Chapter 16: Simulations, an aliens/predator fanfic

"Platoon, halt!" Jake called as he jogged to a halt, turning sharply to face the thirty men trailing along behind him in their PT uniforms. They dutifully stopped in neat rows of five, waiting with straight backs and heads held high. "Attention!" They slid into their rigid postures in unison, their eyes pointed straight ahead, never straying to spare a questioning glance at their leader. Satisfied, Jake nodded and left them there while he turned back on his heel to face the reason why he'd stopped. "Tyler," he greeted the young scientist.

He and his group of marines were in the middle of doing the morning exercises; a pleasant jog around Altin's colony before stopping off at 'The Pit', as they'd taken to calling the small valley which housed the gym and shooting range. They'd nearly managed to reach their destination too, before being intercepted by a certain young man trailing two Xenomorphs. One was a Runner decorated with a scarred head from his run-in with Advena all those months ago, who was easily recognisable as Sal. The other was a far more frightening sight, covered in sharp spines and sporting four unsettling, slitted and reptilian eyes – Shiiya, the Federation-born Xenomorph who'd stowed away on their ship.

"Jacob," Tyler returned in kind. The sergeant's eyes drifted to what looked like a twin-barrelled cannon of some kind slung over Sal's shoulder. It was studded with large, round magnets, capacitors, and all kinds of unusual devices wired together along its barrel which he couldn't identify. "Nice morning for a jog, eh?"

"Some of us like to stay in shape. You know, for when we're being shot at and all," Jake reminded him.

"My mental strength is far more useful to you than my physical. Speaking of, Shiiya and I have just been going over some Federation tech – turns out, she's somewhat of a hobby engineer like myself. She knows her way around the Fed's tech and seems willing enough to pass on some of that knowledge."

"If the Feds don't want you to have this information, then I do," Shiiya explained with an unsettlingly wide grin which Jake imagined would be worn by a spider watching their prey's final desperate struggles on their web. Jake grimaced, but tried not to let his discomfort show through too much. He didn't much like the strange Xenomorph; she was powerful and unpredictable, not to mention she never let on as to what her goals were, what she sought to get out of her little truce she'd struck up. Not a good combination, in his books.

"Works for me," Tyler shrugged. "Hey, I didn't hear you guys coming. Don't you usually, like, chant a mantra or something while you run?"

"Usually only in boot camp," Jake chuckled, fondly remembering the hellish place and his oh-so-pleasant drill sergeant.

"Can you sing me one? Everyone has a different version; I wanna hear yours." Jake snorted at him, waving his curiosity off.

"Nah, I'm not running that kind of PT."

"I'll give ya fifty bucks." Jake paused and peered at his friend suspiciously with narrowed eyes. His mouth twisted into a frown of deep thought as he considered the offer, before straightening up and turning back to his men.

"Alright, break's over marines! Let's get moving!" Jake led his group past the harrumphing scientist, before shooting the young man a wink and bellowing: "I don't know but I've been told!" The marines, to their credit, didn't miss a beat, repeating after him out of sheer habit.

"I don't know but I've been told!" they echoed, their voices thundering together.

"Marines don't have much use for gold!"

"And I don't know but it's been said!"

"I don't know but it's been said!"

"We'd much prefer a box of lead!"

"Sound off!"

"One, two!"

"Sound off!"

"Three, four!"

"We love!"

"The marine corps!"

"Oh, I don't know but I've been told!"

"I don't know but I've been told!"

"The Army Corps is getting old!"

"And I don't know but it's been said!"

"I don't know but it's been said!"

"Without us th' Navy would be dead!"

"And I don't know but I heard tell!"

"I don't know but I heard tell!"

"The fly boys drop us into hell!"

Tyler laughed hysterically at their chant as they jogged down the final stretch of hill to The Pit, and Jake couldn't help but grin self-satisfactorily. He dismissed the group of marines to take on their own training seeing as he wasn't officially in charge of their PT anyway; some of the privates just needed the routine, a semblance of normalcy in these uncertain times.

The sergeant stopped and watched the going-ons around him for a moment with his hands planted firmly on his hips. A small smile flickered across his lips when he noticed that more than a few marines were practicing marksmanship or performing trust exercises with Xenomorphs at their sides. One of the more innovative lance corporals was putting his fireteam through an obstacle course blindfolded, which confused Jake for a moment, until he noticed the Xenomorphs standing nearby, guiding their Bonded through the myriad of obstacles by sharing their eyes. It did, however, bring his mind to a darker place – the fact that their little resistance force was short on ranking officers was more obvious than ever here.

He briefly glanced at the empty spot next to him and sighed depressively. Advena was currently bundled up inside an egg, waiting in queue for the next available hatchery livestock after her recent injury. Which meant, until her turn to respawn came up, he was alone.

He was brought out of his despair by Tyler, whose entourage finally arrived at the foot of the hill which sloped down into The Pit, catching him standing around doing a whole lot of nothing.

"What the hell is that thing Sal's carrying, anyway?" Jake inquired before Tyler could ask him what he was moping around for.

"A prototype weapon," Tyler explained nonchalantly. For a pacifist, he sure seemed to have a keen interest in weapons of mass destruction. "Shiiya has drawn my attention to some Federation design concepts which I figured I'd try out. The Wey-Yu has been trying to develop NMP weapons for decades, but they never managed to shrink it down below ship-mounted. If we've played our cards right, Shiiya and I may have just shrunk it down to a heavy-weapon size."

"NMP?" Jake echoed inquisitively.

"Non-Massive Projectile," Tyler elaborated. "Essentially a laser gun, like you see in movies."

"Well, this I gotta see." Tyler grinned triumphantly and led the small party down to the shooting range, where he set up a stack of heavy metal cargo crates. More for comedic effect than anything, he taped one of the paper shooting targets to the front of the stack, then rejoined his group at the firing line. He pulled up his PDA which was currently monitoring a plethora of complicated-looking values, as well as a live-feed scan of the device, before giving Sal the thumbs up. The Xeno planted his feet firmly, rested the tubular weapon on his shoulder, and took aim. Jake flicked his eyes from the weapon to the target intermittently, not knowing which one would be more spectacular to focus on. Finally, Sal pulled the trigger.

Small wheels deep within the gun's firing mechanism began spinning rapidly, quickly becoming a blur of constant motion while thin rails within the barrel began glowing, steadily shifting from orange, to red, to white. It crackled, popped, then launched what could only be described as a beam of fire at the target dummy. In actuality, the beam itself was invisible to the naked eye, but the sheer heat was causing the surrounding air to burst into short-lived licks of flame.

The paper burned up on impact, revealing the reinforced crates which were built to sustain vehicular and explosive impacts were currently in the midst of melting into a waterfall of goop, the molten metal pooling onto the ground where it slowly hardened into a smooth, frozen puddle.

"Shut it down," Tyler advised, and Sal eased off the trigger. The beam continued. "Shit, the ignition filament must have fused to – Everybody down!" Obediently, Jake, Tyler and Shiiya all threw themselves onto the hard dirt, the former instinctively throwing his arms over the back of his head like he'd been trained, mitigating the risk of shrapnel getting to his brain. The gun's hum rose into a high-pitched, sizzling whine, like a fatty sausage on a barbeque, then exploded dramatically in Sal's arms. Jake yowled in pain when a few errant splatters of liquid metal sprayed onto his exposed back, the gun having exploded into melted globs rather than solid shrapnel. He hissed sharply and rolled over, rubbing the molten goop onto the hard dirt before it could harden on his skin. He found his feet soon after and began checking everyone over.

"Is everyone alright?" Tyler was sitting upright, his legs folded neatly beneath him while he grunted and ripped the now-cooled droplets of metal from his body, tearing layers of skin off with it now that the two were fused. Shiiya looked unbothered, her obviously nerve-less spikes having caught any of the spray which had come her way. Sal, however, was staring at the stump where his arm had been a few minutes earlier with a muted look of what could only be described as disappointment. No acidic blood dripped from the wound, having been quite effectively cauterised by the super-heated explosion.

"Guess that's what I get for trying to substitute American tech in for Federation-grade stuff," Tyler sighed, as if his primary concern was for his failed experiment and not the fact they all could have died. Jake was speechless, and simply resorted to jabbing his entire arm towards Sal's maimed limb with a slack-jawed expression. "We were planning on getting him a new body soon anyway," Tyler waved the sergeant off. "This just makes it a necessity, rather than a whim." Jake struggled to speak for a moment, simply making small sounds in the back of his throat, before finally managing:

"Unbelievable." Tyler splayed his hands out in a display of mock-innocence and shrugged.

"Hey, if not me, then –" Tyler stopped mid-quip, then quickly fished his insistently-vibrating phone out of his pocket. "Yello." He pressed his lips and gave Jake a look that said yeesh as he listened to the voice on the other end. "Well, actually I was gonna head over to the Hive. Yah-huh. Alright. Yep, I'll pass it on." He pocketed the device once more and gave Jake a sympathetic look. "Jeica wants to meet up with us in the gym; says she's got some training for you to partake in. Feel free to wander back home or something Shiiya." Jake watched the Federation Xenomorph saunter off with a frown and narrowed eyes.

"I don't like her," he opined once she was out of earshot. "She seems like she has ulterior motives."

"Don't we all?" Tyler asked of him as he began leading the way out to the back of The Pit, where the enormous gym building had been erected. Jake watched Sal keep pace with him, seeming unbothered by the stump where his arm used to be, confusing the sergeant to no end.

"So what's going to happen when Sal respawns? Advena told me that until Xenos are about halfway-grown, they're essentially a USB stick with survival instincts."

"Yeah, we won't be able to talk or fuck for a day, but I'm sure we'll get over it."

"No, I mean, if he's not like, there, then won't that break your Bond? And, you know, potentially kill you?"

"Ech, how to put it…" Tyler mused. He tapped his chin thoughtfully for a moment, his eyes drifting to the various training activities they passed on their way to the gym. "An embryo still has a telepathy node, it's just not developed enough to transmit more advanced information – just like how the embryo's brain contains all the memories and personality of the Xeno, but not the facilities to express them. The reason Sal and I can't break our Bond is because our bodies are synched up to each other's minds, if that makes any sense – for example, our hearts are in synch. When Sal gets nervous, my heart beats faster, even if I'm not consciously aware of the fact he's nervous, right? So, in theory, if my heart lost connection to his brain, it would synch up to a lack of heartbeat – i.e., stop beating altogether, thus killing me. However, a heartbeat is a very simple piece of information to send and receive telepathically, and is something you can't consciously control, therefore Sal doesn't need his conscious mind to beat his heart, and our minds can still access each other's heartbeat because it's simple enough to transmit over the diminished Bond. Make sense?"

"You could have just said 'no', but yeah. Makes sense." He considered it for a moment, thinking about his girlfriend all wrapped up inside an egg at the moment, waiting on the next wave of livestock culling to be hatched. "So you're saying I could still Bond with Advena, even while she's in her egg?"

"Yeah, you wouldn't really notice it though. As I say, pretty much everything she'll be able to transmit will be on the subconscious level of the brain." They stepped through the large double doors of the gym which had obviously been built to facilitate both Xenomorphs and humans. As soon as they crossed the threshold into the pleasantly cool building, they were greeted by their Lieutenant.

"What the hell happened to him?" Jeica asked with furrowed brow as he nodded at Sal. "Actually, judging by the boom I heard, it was probably something wildly irresponsible that I'd have to punish extensively, so don't tell me. See no evil and all that."

"You look tired," Jake noted, observing her flat tone of voice and dark-rimmed eyes. He got a scolding expression in return for his concern.

"Yeah, we're short on leader types around here. Abraham's people still aren't totally willing to play ball, which means I have to keep an extra eye out on them, while still having very little command staff to help me manage the Saints. Which brings me to why we're here, actually." She gestured to the stairwell behind her, something which had been under construction for a couple of weeks now, but Jake noticed the cautionary signage had finally been peeled away, allowing access to the tunnels below. "You remember that arena you and Advena trained in back on Reveles?" Jake winced, remembering it all too well indeed. He still had a couple of small, pale scars where some of the stun rounds had hit harder than they were supposed to. "Say hello to the Arena." Jeica took the first step down with her head high, silently and authoritatively commanding the others to follow.

The well-lit concrete stairwell opened up into a short corridor of similar design which ended in an observation room of sorts. A glass window dominated the front wall, accompanied by control panels and monitoring equipment which no doubt controlled the arena beyond the glass. The enormous expanse was currently empty, though Jake recognised the slots and panels from where walls and obstacles could be extended, turning the empty chamber into a complex maze of corridors and rooms, or an open expanse with little cover – whatever combat situation a commander wanted to simulate, really. On either side of the observation room was a door, leading to two private locker rooms, likely one for each team in a scenario. Of course, Jake realised; they didn't have bots here on Altin – only other soldiers.

Jeica spread her arms wide, trying to give a proud flourish, but her sluggish and weary movements made the display more depressing than anything. "You two are going to be the first to use the Arena," she announced. Jake peered sideways at Tyler sceptically, his eyebrow hiking up in bemusement.

"Uh, a trained soldier versus a civvie?" Jake uttered quizzically.

"A bumbling fool against a tactical genius?" Tyler asked in similar fashion.

"In a sense, but not the way you're both thinking. See, this is going to be a leadership exercise. Neither of you will set foot into that arena, but rather guide a team through it. You'll have access to a radio, your team's video feeds, and any assets or intel your team gathers throughout the exercise. The mission is simple: eliminate the enemy team. Think you two can handle that?"

"Uh…" Jake said dumbly.

"I work better alone," Tyler reminded her.

"And that's exactly why we're doing this exercise. We have plenty of good soldiers here; I want people to lead them. Leadership training is going to become a regular exercise in your life, Sergeant Harlor, and I'd advise you commit yourself to it as well, Doelle."

"It's not me who needs training," Tyler protested. "Your dumb monkeys hate me 'cause I'm gay, remember? Trying to get them to listen to my orders would take ten times longer than simply doing it myself. It's inefficient."

"It's your orders," Jeica snapped. "Get your ass in that locker room and brief your team." Tyler shrugged and sauntered over to the left doorway with his hands tucked passively in his pockets, but not before tossing over his shoulder:

"Only so I get to say 'I told you so'."

"I am curious," Jake remarked after watching the young scientist go, "what does make you think they're going to listen to him? I don't mean to speak ill of my fellow marines, but we're not exactly renowned for playing nice with others – especially those who hold themselves above us like Tyler does."

"I gave them an order, and they'll follow it. Bitch about it as they may, they know how to obey the command structure," Jeica assured him. "Now get your ass in that locker room before I strip you right the way back down to private." Jake saluted haphazardly and quickly jogged into the next room, finding the door locked quietly behind him to safeguard him from interference.

The room had the layout of a pretty standard loadout bay; a weapons locker to the rear of the room held racks of standard-issue firearms and equipment while sturdy metal lockers housed combat gear. Metal benches where strewn about the centre of the room for the purpose of helping the soldiers pull their gear on, but otherwise the small area was bare. Before him stood five soldiers; four human marines and one Xenomorph, dressed in nothing but their fatigues – except for the Xenomorph, who was among the many of their kind that hadn't caught on to the one local clothing store which had started producing clothes in Xeno sizes.

"What's our plan, Sir?" the leader of the small fireteam inquired. A corporal in rank, the young woman bore three parallel scars running across her left cheek and over the bridge of her nose, spaced in such a manner which led Jake to believe a Xenomorph had inflicted them a long time ago. The tag on her breast read 'G. Porola', the uniform itself pristine and lacking the Saints of America patch, which he concluded meant she was one of Abraham's soldiers that had recently transferred in from the old colony. Jake hummed to himself as he began to get the feeling he wasn't the only one being tested here.

"Tyler is a strategist and a perfectionist; he's going to take a slow, steady approach and pause to take as much intel as he possibly can. It's incredibly doubtful he'll have the know-how to set his team up defensively while he takes the data points, so if we can locate his team early on, we can rush them and likely catch them off-guard. Plan B is setting up an ambush at a data point and waiting for him to come collect." Jake paused as he felt the familiar rumbling vibration beneath his feet which told tale of the dynamic training arena shifting into whatever configuration Jeica had chosen. "I want the team ready for close-to-mid-range combat; Pulse Rifles and SMGs only." He let the soldiers pluck their appropriate weaponry from the racks, knowing better than to interfere with weapons assignment beyond what he'd already done.

"Step into the next room when you're ready, Harlor," Jeica advised him over the locker room's intercom. Jake did as he was told, breaking off from his group to head through a small door set into the end of the locker room. He looked back a moment, just in time to catch his team bundling up inside what looked like a freight elevator, before disappearing into his designated command centre.

The room was small, only big enough to house the modest command station which was set up to be just like the real deal. He gracefully slid himself onto a small office chair which stood before a computer terminal, complete with six screens stacked together into two neat rows of three, the outer screens angled to make them easier to see without moving. Hung tidily atop one of the topmost screens was a hefty headset complete with in-built microphone, which he hastily donned as the screens began flickering to life. Four helmet camera feeds, two security interfaces. He imagined the security interfaces would be used to jack into the data nodes scattered throughout the arena, as well as send commands to his soldiers' HUDs. "Simulation, begin," Jeica announced over the intercom. The camera feeds tilting up towards the sky, as if searching for a disembodied voice, told Jake that his team had heard the announcement too.

The scenery through the feeds was fairly nondescript; the walls were featureless metal panels, the ceiling similar though occasionally dotted with a fluorescent light or security camera tucked away securely behind a small cage. The only landmarks seemed to be the numerical designations stamped above each doorway in thick, clear white block lettering.

"Alright…" Jake hummed, cracking his knuckles nervously. "Take it slow, watch out for intersections and data points."

When his team began to move, he couldn't help but let his eyes dance from screen to screen furtively, scanning his team's helmet cameras for any signs of movement. This was a new strain of helplessness; an inability to do anything but watch as others marched into danger for him. Of course, this wasn't the real deal, but one day it would be. One day he'd be in a command centre just like this one, sending a small band of rebels into a huge war for the future of not just America, not just humanity, but quite possibly every sapient specie on this side of the galaxy.

"Data node up ahead," Porola reported. Jake glued his eyes to her feed, noting the small computer interface set into the wall.

"Good, jack in and see what you can get." Porola relayed his orders, and soon a specialist jogged into her view, pulling a bypass device from his belt and hooking it up to the small terminal. One of the security interfaces to Jake's side popped up with a new command window, revealing a list of camera feeds within the arena. "Perfect; that's everything we need. I'll be able to find Tyler's team through this." He quickly flicked through all the feeds, backpedalling after catching a blur of colour out of place. There. "Section 4H. His whole team's stacked up on a data terminal." His eyes once again returned to Porola's helmet cam, which panned up to stare at the marking above the doorway ahead. 16S. "He's in a hub room; four entryways. We can breach from two perpendicular doorways and hit them with a crossfire. Move fast through sections sixteen to six, but try to stay quiet from six to four. I'd much prefer to catch him off-guard."

Satisfied that his team would be fine carrying out his orders, Jake returned his attention to the cameras. Tyler's corporal was issuing commands to two of the privates, who moved out together to patrol the outlying corridors. Jake was mildly impressed; Tyler seemed to have basic militant sense, sending soldiers out in pairs, securing a perimeter. But Jake had the superior intel. He cocked his head curiously as he watched the two privates. One of them raised their pistol at the ceiling and squeezed the trigger. The camera fell into inky blackness. The door into the next section slid open, spilling a small cone of light into the pitch black subterranean corridor, soon to be cut off again as the soldiers moved on, sealing Jake's camera back in with the darkness. Tyler's private had, for some obscure reason, just shot out the light. What is he up to? Jake mused to himself.

The sergeant found the comms switch again and hailed his corporal. "Be careful of section five; they've taken out the lights. Might be planning an ambush or something – have our Xenomorph take point, they're better at seeing in the dark than our NVG is." He paused, then a smile slowly spread across his face. "I see you…" he murmured as if his adversary could hear him. Then, to his team: "Get someone on a motion tracker; I'll bet he's got his Xenomorph hiding in the dark for an ambush. Keep an eye on the ceiling." Jake flicked back to the hub room feed and, sure enough, all of Tyler's team were present bar the Xenomorph. One of the privates pointed at the camera, and with a curse Jake realised his search of the room had been noticed. The muzzle of a gun was the last thing the feed saw before going dark. "Go, go, go!" Jake urged, knowing if he wanted to catch Tyler off guard it was now or never.

His team split in two, with Porola leading two men down to the first door and the Xenomorph and a private down to the second. He nodded in satisfaction at the helmet cameras which clearly showed his team scanning the roof for any lurking Xenomorphs before moving to stack up on the doors. They positioned themselves, rifles ready and grenades primed, ready to breach and clear, when suddenly, all of their cameras went dead, reduced to static in an instant.

"Green team eliminated. Indigo team wins." The automated message echoed around him, adding to his disoriented swirl of confusion. An instant. It had all ended in an instant. How? The door to his rear buzzed, illuminating itself in the green glow from the light above its frame, indicating he was free to return to the observation deck.

As he stepped through the door, he braced himself for a heavy berating at the hands of Jeica, but instead found the room empty, the control room left to clear the arena automatically. He paced over to the window which overlooked the massive training space, watching as the ceiling raised up off the simulated building, leaving the corridor walls standing, his view making it look like one of those maze boxes you used to get in children's puzzle books. And there in the middle of it all, Tyler's soldiers were helping Jake's to their feet and leading them towards the exit elevator even as the walls began sliding back into the floor, intent on leaving the arena as vast and empty as it had been when they first arrived.

Jake heard a door behind him open, and Tyler stepped into the small observation room, looking much less smug and victorious than Jake had expected him to be.

"C4. Clever," Jake noted. "But how did you know when to detonate it?"

"My team was monitoring yours on their motion trackers. As soon as you stacked up on the doors…"

"Boom," Jake sighed. "I don't get it. I tried to think like you, I tried to predict you, and you still caught me off-guard. What am I doing wrong?"

"It was a simple logic fail." Tyler took note of Jake's unamused expression, and decided to elaborate lest the sergeant start getting offended. "Okay, let me tell you a story. Back when humanity was still confined to Earth, there was this war – well, lots of wars, really, but this one was a big one. All of this continent called Europe was fighting this one little country, Germany. The Germans were winning, and had air superiority over this island of Britain. Now, these Britains wanted to improve the survivability of their planes, so they decided to take a look at all the planes which had come back from battle to see where they needed to add more armour. So what they did, they looked at all the bullet holes in the planes and said: look at all the bullet holes there, that's where they're getting shot the most, we need to add more armour there." Tyler paused, waiting for Jake to interject.

"So…?" he asked warily, causing Tyler to huff in frustration.

"See, you're not getting it. It's a logic fail. If a plane has come back, it obviously hasn't crashed, right? The pilot isn't dead, the plane survived? So it stands to reason then, that the plane didn't get shot anywhere that matters. The bullet holes don't tell you where you need to add armour, they tell you where a plane can be hit without going down – that is to say, where the plane doesn't need any armour."

"Of course," Jake muttered with a frown. "That makes sense."

"And judging by your strategy, you expected me to gather every bit of intel I could before attacking you, because that's what a smart person would do, right? But that's a logic fail. A smart person would expect you to advance and clear rooms and rush their position. A smart person wouldn't attack at all – they'd put all their resources into a defence and wait for their enemy to approach them."

"So you knew I was coming the whole time. You knew I was watching your team on the cameras, you were just playing dumb to lure me in," Jake realised. They both turned when a sudden clang interrupted their exchange, signalling the elevator from the arena had arrived at the observation deck, sliding open to reveal the two teams of marines. Jake turned back to resume his talk with Tyler, only to find his friend had vanished, likely to avoid the soldiers who he had a less-than-stellar opinion of. He shook his head at the odd scientist, then slowly made his own way up the stairs and back to the bright sunlight of the surface world.

He found the young man leaning on the gym's outer wall, his hand idly stroking his boyfriend's jaw while the alien crooned and tilted his head into the touch. "You waiting around for me?" Jake asked curiously. Tyler had certainly undergone a lot of change recently, but the sergeant suspected he wasn't quite at the point where he'd partake in such simple yet open gestures of friendship. His suspicions were confirmed when Tyler, signature frown still affixed to his lips, shook his head.

"Nah, just… thinking." Jake shrugged and took a knee, fussing over the laces of his combat boots as an excuse to stick around. Sure enough, Tyler stayed glued to his spot, his body language ambiguous to all but those who knew him well. Jake knew for a fact, however, that when Tyler was scheming or planning or thinking, he tended to pace, gesticulate, and think aloud. And he usually reached his solution much quicker than this.

"You're thinking real hard there," he commented, keeping his tone flat and disinterested so as not to aggravate his friend. Tyler folded his arms, his mouth tightening into a brief grimace.

"My intellect is astounding," he stated simply. "I can pilot vessels built for a minimum crew of six on my own, I can build complex machinery from scratch, solve complex physics equations in my head and not only understand, but appropriate alien technology in just a few short hours. But people? People confuse me. I've never been good at…" Tyler huffed irately, searching for a single word to express his frustrations, before giving up. "… people." Jake finally stood, leaving his perfect laces alone so he could be eye to eye with his friend.

"Where's this coming from?"

"Sal needs a new body, and for that he needs Royal Jelly."

"Ah," Jake realised. "Queen Asphid." Tyler nodded the affirmative.

"I can't figure her out. I've made mistakes, done some things which hurt her people, but never knowingly. I think she dislikes me for it regardless. But then she's just so… weird."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'nice'," Jake jibed.

"Too nice. Aggressively nice. It's off-putting, like she wants to be everyone's mom or something. And she has this… presence, some kind of telepathic thing which makes people trust her and rose-tint their views of her. She finds people's deepest vulnerabilities and dredges them out so she can solve them and become this great… motherly… thing. And that scares me. It scares me that she has the sheer telepathic power to, like, hypnotise people into trusting her and confiding in her. It's a short hop away from mind control. I just can't find any way to trust her, and that makes her suspicious of me, and now I have to waltz into her home and beg her to help me get my boyfriend a new body." Tyler was shaking slightly now, enraged at the fact he didn't know what to do. It became apparent to the sergeant that Tyler was biding his time by hanging around the gym.

"Whoa, okay, calm down there," Jake said uneasily, "there's no way she's actually mind controlling people. That can't be done, right Sal?" Sal refused to respond, averting his eyes by shifting his domed head away.

"It can be," Tyler replied quietly, his eyes downcast. "Because I can do it." Jake felt the urge to laugh in the scientist's face, to demand how gullible Tyler thought he was, but there was something about the way Sal drew small circles with his foot guiltily and that doom-and-gloom expression on Tyler's face.

"You're messing with me."

"I wish I were. Telepathy would be much happier and safer if I was. But I did it, back on the Black Hand. The pilot… I forced him to give me his gun. I tried to make him go to sleep too but he just… screamed, and cried…"

"Shit."

"Yeah. Then I tried using it on Lieutenant Parker, but couldn't seem to do anything. It only hit me later that the pilot must have been a telepath, and that I used my shallow Bond to do the whole… control… thing." Jake heaved a sigh of relief.

"Right, but you said you and Sal lost your shallow Bonds after you Bonded with me and Advena, right? The new connections repaired the link and fixed you."

"Sal did, yes."

"Things are never simple around here, are they?"

"I'm not human, Jacob, remember that. For all we know, this was the Wey-Yu's plan all along. But more likely is that my brain is just strong enough to overpower a human's – like how Shiiya could overpower Advena's mind and control her body."

"That makes sense," Jake agreed. "And if Advena's testament is anything to go by, it's not really mind control as such. She described it as 'forced bodyswapping', except she wasn't swapped anywhere. She was just a spectator in her own body."

"Still… one mind can overpower another. It's a scary thought considering Queen Ashpid has the most powerful mind out of any living creature I've ever seen."

"Have you ever tried… controlling her?" Jake asked curiously. Tyler shook his head.

"I can't control Xenomorphs – none that I've come across, anyway. Believe me, I've done extensive research on this – there's no way I'd be telling you any of this if I hadn't – and so far all data seems to point towards telepathic strength being key. For example, you've been extensively trained on how to control your telepathy and you have strong Bonds with a Xenomorph – or two, technically. Being Bonded makes your mind a closed circuit with no openings for me to exploit, and having telepathic training means even if you were un-Bonded, you have the telepathic strength to defend your mind from attacks. Hence, I cannot control you. However, the pilot of the USS Black Hand probably had no interaction with his Xenomorph and no Bond, so his mind was open and vulnerable. In more picturesque terms, his mind had a wooden door with a latch lock – easy to kick in when breaking and entering. Your mind naturally has a reinforced steel bulkhead door and is guarded by an angry Xenomorph – good luck getting through uninvited."

"What, so your whole mind control thing only works on un-Bonded humans? Weak, man. I expected better from that big brain of yours." Tyler held up a single finger in an interjective manner.

"For now, yes. After our encounter with Sally the AI, I've delved into the world of computer Bonding, and it seems that Bonding with computers is enough to make one just a little bit faster, a little bit smarter. Maybe with more study, I'll be able to turn a little bit into a lot." Tyler sighed warily and patted his Xeno's shoulder twice, as if to reassure the big alien, before pushing himself up off the wall and beginning to trek away from the gym. Jake, having nothing better to do for the time being, followed. Their climb out of The Pit was uneventful and silent, and only when they crested the steep slope did Jake speak up once more.

"Computer Bonding?" he asked inquisitively. "Like, connecting your mind with a computer?"

"That's the one."

"Isn't that dangerous? Like, couldn't someone delete your brain or something?"

"Not with a computer, no. Unless they hit me really hard in the head with it," Tyler chuckled. "My brain isn't actually in the computer, remember; just connected to it. I can send information to it and receive information from it, and even body-swap with a computer, but my brain will continue to remain inside my skull."

"Sally seemed to believe she could put herself into an organic body. If that's the case, couldn't you theoretically rip someone's mind out of their body?" That quickly wiped the grin off the scientist's face, forcing him into a contemplative state.

"As much as I hate to admit it; I don't know. The Federation and Yautja are one thing, but these Engineers… they're beyond any of us. I would need to learn a dead alien language before I could even begin dissecting their technology. Sally might have deciphered their tech, or she might have been plain crazy. Who knows? Maybe it would've worked, maybe it was just junk." He seemed to think on that for a moment, their footsteps filling the silence as the buildings thinned out and began giving way to the familiar trees of Altin's forests. "Then again, AI are designed to be moved around and jump from computer to computer, humans and Xenos are not. What's possible for Sally wouldn't necessarily be possible for us."

"Humans also aren't designed to broadcast their thoughts telepathically, yet here we are," Jake pointed out, growing uneasy as they neared the cave which housed the local Hive.

"Fair point." A few short steps later, they arrived, stopping outside the structure which the Xenomorphs called home. Jake had to admit, as much as he hated the resin-coated places, this one in particular looked rather inviting. The last time he'd seen it, exposed wiring and work lights littered the cave mouth while a pair of guards lounged around at a folding table playing cards. Now, the guards instead lounged in a small cabin just outside the main entrance, overlooking an impressive display of human and Xenomorph habitats melding together. Small lamps were housed in the rippling murals of resin, lighting up the foyer-esque cave entrance which split off into many dark and foreboding tunnels which sent a shiver down Jake's spine. The well-lit, human-friendly area was nice though; decorated with plush, cushioned seats and clean round tables, it looked like some kind of strange diner more than a monster's den. There was even a bathroom and a conference room off to the sides, offering a more comfortable environment for uneasy humans such as himself to meet with the aliens. "Weird…" Tyler uttered, eying the juxtaposition between the carpeted floor and the hard resin walls.

"Not a regular either, hm?" Jake chortled uneasily, trying to distract his fear of the horrors the pitch black tunnels gave home to.

"As I said; I tend to keep my distance from the Queen. That usually involves, y'know, not rocking up to her front door." He cast a quick glance at a nearby Praetorian – the hulking alien was bent down with its head almost touching the floor, making small movements with its fingers to point a pair of humans towards one of the many branching tunnels. "Ah, perfect; directions. Maybe I'll get lucky and grab the jelly without interacting with… her." He scowled and quickly made off, leaving Jake standing in the entryway of the foyer on his lonesome.

"Sergeant Harlor," a drone whom he didn't know greeted him, trotting over nonchalantly as he hung back in the cave's mouth, still uncertain as to whether he wanted to step into the half-human-half-Xenomorph architecture. "I haven't seen you around here in… actually, I don't think I've ever seen you here before."

"Queen Asphid," Jake returned in kind, recognising the telepathic voice. It would seem the Queen was stretching her borrowed legs for a while in a proxy body. He briefly wondered if she had been watching them the whole time, waiting for Tyler to leave before approaching. The animosity between them certainly seemed at least partially mutual.

"I would be getting my hopes up thinking you're here to finally join the Hive, wouldn't I?"

"Afraid so," he admitted, just a little guiltily.

"Ah, of course; you must be here to visit Advena."

"Actually, well, no, but I mean, I would like to, but, uh…" Asphid cocked her head, concern showing clearly on her mind and body as he mutilated his words before her. Jake took a deep breath and recollected himself. "I don't like Hives," he confessed, wincing at the sheer insult he must be flinging at the matriarch of one such Hive. "Ever since my first mission in one, I can't help but get like, flashbacks, I guess. Like, this feeling in my gut, the fear. Like, I know in my brain that the circumstances are different but I get all panicked and –" Jake stopped mid sentence, chewing his lip as he peered suspiciously at the Xeno before him.

"Go on," Asphid soothed him. But the more he recoiled from her words, the more he felt it. Every time he wanted to get angry, his emotions dulled, placating him. He felt safe and warm, and he had to struggle to focus on the people around him, as if they were fuzzy images in the background of an old film. Not really there.

"Don't do that," he growled. Asphid was taken aback, peering around herself in confusion as if having a hard time believing he was talking to her.

"What?" she asked quizzically.

"That. That thing. You're messing with my head." Mind control. This is what Tyler had been talking about. The ability to manipulate emotions, and Jake never would have noticed it if the scientist hadn't brought it up. He'd just started pouring his heart out to this person he barely knew, just like Tyler had said.

"I can't help this. What you're feeling is my emotions and my thoughts. Queens can't help but be felt by all. A blessing for most, but humans tend to be… sensitive about it, apparently. Truthfully, I've never met anyone who's noticed it before." She stiffened for a moment, slowly straightening up her posture to peer behind Jake's back. "Of course." Jake felt a subtle shift in his emotions – or rather, the emotions the Queen was radiating. Disdain. "You."

"Your Majesty," Tyler returned coldly, stepping up beside Jake. Jake was confused at first when he saw Sal hanging back behind Tyler, his body hunching in to make itself as small as possible as if on instinct – then it hit him. The reason why Sal hadn't won Tyler over about the Queen, why he didn't explain to Tyler what abilities she possessed and why she did the things she did. Sal hadn't been raised in a Hive; his Queen had been taken from him by humans when he was an infant, leaving him to be raised by two Drones and a Warrior. Then his entire family had been slaughtered by a crazed Queen right in front of him. He must've been terrified of Asphid. That certainly wouldn't help Tyler's disposition either.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Tyler gestured towards his injured boyfriend with a raised eyebrow.

"Just need some Royal Jelly, then I'll be right back out of your hair." His eyes flicked up to her smooth, domed head for a brief moment. "Figuratively speaking."

"Hmph. Very well." Exchange finished, Asphid turned her attention back to Jake. "If you wish to visit Advena, she is in the egg chamber. This Drone will be able to lead the way." The Xeno's demeanour shifted, relaxing and loosening its posture, before cocking its head and quickly looking around itself.

"Oh, hello," a shy, male voice greeted them tentatively.

"Hi…" Jake replied slowly, still unused to the Queen's abrupt body-swapping habits. "Uh, do you know where the egg chamber is?"

"Oh! Yes, it's quite deep inside, so you might have to follow me so you don't get lost. Right this way!" The Xeno bounded off towards one of the dark tunnels. Jake froze in place before the looming dark abyss, staring at the seam where carpet gave away to smooth resin and the threshold where light couldn't penetrate anymore. Small indents in the walls' flowing patterns became bathed in shadow, closely guarding whatever secrets could be hiding within. Their guide paused just before this threshold, confused as to why nobody was following him anymore.

"Give us a minute," Tyler requested politely, at which the Xenomorph nodded and settled down onto his haunches patiently.

"You should go on without me. I can visit Advena later. Or get her brought out to me. Or something. I don't know." Jake held his head in his hands, gritting his teeth in frustration.

"Bond with me," Tyler commanded suddenly, making Jake look up and eye him questioningly. "Oh come on, I'm sure we won't accidentally switch personalities again. Bond with me. Trust me." Jake's heart beat just a little faster, not only because of the fear of the darkness in front of him, but because of what he was about to do. He closed his eyes and relaxed his mind, letting down the mental barrier he'd put up to block out his and Tyler's Bond. He felt the scientist's mind, the raw essence of his soul laid bare. That cool, hard exterior he kept up at all times could do nothing now; Jake felt the concern, the sympathy, the desire to help. Eyelids still clenched shut, he cocked his head. He heard an unusual sound in his ears, so quiet and faint. But then he heard it again, slightly louder, clearer. Again, and this time he could make it out. Birdsong. The merry, falsetto chirping of a wild bird. "Open your eyes, Jacob."

Jake obeyed, peeking out into the cavern once more. Only, the resin walls had disappeared. The carpet beneath his feet had morphed into blades of vibrant green grass, and the thick trunks of trees grew all around him, forming a thick canopy of leaves above which light could only barely filter through. Before him, the trees grew denser and their foliage thicker, forming a small dark tunnel into the underbrush. He panicked, and the image began distorting. The trunks of the trees rippled and deformed, carving intricate patterns into the bark which hastily turned translucent and grey. The leaves withered and melted, turning into frozen waves of black Xenomorph resin, the blades of grass stiffening back into dull red fibres of wool.

"Wh-what was that?" he demanded.

"Relax, Jacob," Tyler soothed him. "You know how you can use telepathy to create whole worlds in your dreams? It's the same principal, only we're awake. You have to relax though; if your mind gets too active, the façade fades away."

Jake once again watched the world bend around him, shifting into new shapes. The floor hardened into asphalt, the walls reinforced steel. Beyond the cave mouth, the forest melted into inky blackness, speckled by tiny white pinpricks of light. Tables and chairs morphed into idle Power Loaders and stacks of munition crates. The tunnel before him turned into a uniform, steel corridor dotted with fluorescent lights which left nothing to the imagination, even in the farthest part of the tunnel which Jake hadn't been able to see in the real world. Yet, he could clearly see a Xenomorph crossing through the well-lit hall via an intersecting corridor.

"How are you…?"

"Xenomorphs have excellent night vision. I'm using Sal to see what I can't, then constructing my false reality on top of it." Jake spun a in a slow circle, taking in the sights again. Sitting atop a pile of crates, a human clad in USCM armour was chatting with a Xenomorph. In fact, all of the humans seemed to be in uniform, despite the fact there had mostly been civilians in her when they'd walked in. It must have been part of the illusion.

"A ship's hangar?" Jake inquired curiously.

"The one and only Merciful Indictor's. Man-made structures are much more uniform and simple, ergo much easier for me to simulate. That forest was hard to hold in my head because of all the moving parts and thousands of leaves. Besides, you're probably more at home here than anywhere else, am I right?"

"This is incredible, Tyler. How… how can you do all this?" Tyler shrugged in response.

"Practice. Multiple teachers. Big ol' engineered science brain. I could probably teach you how to do it, given enough time." He flicked a finger forward, loosely pointing at the patiently-waiting Xenomorph Drone ahead of them. "But that can wait. We should probably get going so this guy can get back to his day."

"We?" Jake echoed. "You want me to go –?" He cast a fearful glance at the tunnels, yet saw nothing but the brightly-lit ship corridors, each section stamped neatly with a numeric designation to make navigating easier. Cool, sterile air washed gently over his skin from a nearby vent – a welcome change from the humidity of the Hive.

"Yes, I want you to go to… hm, shall we say cargo hold two?" Jake took a step forward, tentatively placing his hand on the wall of the corridor. He expected to be disillusioned by the glass-like texture of rippling murals set into a resin wall, but instead laid his palm flat against cold, hard steel. Tyler sneezed and quickly buried his nose in a handkerchief, the sudden noise snapping Jake out of his stupor.

"It feels real too. How is this possible? I'm feeling something that's not actually there…"

"Everything you're feeling is a memory of something I've felt before supplanted into your brain instead of what you're actually feeling. Your nerves are sending sensations to your brain, but I'm intercepting the signals and sending you different ones in their stead. It is quite taxing though, so try not to rub your hands on every wall." Satisfied, Tyler shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket and nodded to their guide. The Drone led the way confidently, for the most part leaving them to their own devices besides the occasional check over his shoulder to make sure his charges were still following along. Jake felt a gnawing sense of uneasiness knowing he was in a Hive, yet no matter how many times he spun around or craned his neck, he was inside a spaceship. The featureless steel walls were flecked with scratches and dotted with maintenance panels; it was too real. Despite the internal conflict, he did his best to stay relaxed, dreading the idea of accidentally cutting off their Bond and revealing the walls for what they really were.

"So why does the Queen hate you so much anyway?" he asked idly, figuring the less he concentrated on his surroundings, the easier it would be to pretend he was aboard the Merciful Indictor. "She seems to love everyone else."

"That's a bit of a long story."

"Give me a TLDR." Tyler sighed and averted his eyes.

"Through sheer dumb curiosity, I caused the Wey-Yu to torture fifteen Xenomorph children to death."

"Ch-children? You don't mean…?"

"Two years old, maybe three. Can't have been any over five or six. One of them was her own." Tyler took a quick peek at his friend's horrified expression and grimaced. "Believe me, it was the last thing I wanted to happen. Queen Asphid has a hard time believing that though – in her eyes, I'm just another corporate scumbag torturing her people to turn a profit. Truthfully, I wasn't even there when they did it – I'd already transferred to Reveles at that point. But it was my research which inspired them, my success they tried to replicate, and my cowardice that gave them no other options."

Jake made to ask Tyler to elaborate, but found they'd already arrived at their destination. The corridor opened up to an enormous chamber stamped as 'CARGO HOLD 2' on the far wall. The steel box was lined with shelves on all sides, each one stocked with varying numbers of metal containers marked with a biohazard warning. The floor of the room was lined with rows upon rows of neatly-organised Xenomorph eggs, a fine mist engulfing their bases, keeping them cool and in a state of stasis until suitable Hosts could be found. Jake cast a worried look in Tyler's direction, but the scientist simply waved him off, as if to say I'm not going anywhere. He simply turned to the Drone, explaining his need for some Royal Jelly, leaving Jake to find Advena's egg.

Jake turned his attention back towards the neat rows of identical-looking Xenomorph eggs, then began slowly pacing up and down the room's length. According to Advena, there was a special instinct telepaths had, a subconscious feeling one gets when they're nearby to their prospective partner. He finally found it midway through the third row; a tingling in the back of his mind, the mental equivalent of something hovering millimetres above your skin – not close enough to touch, yet close enough that you could sense it, making your hairs prick up.

"Hello 'Vee," Jake greeted the egg, placing his hand against its soft, hide-like shell. He closed his eyes, reaching out gently for her heartbeat. He was met with a powerful surge of emotion which almost physically knocked him over. "Won't notice it my ass!" he exclaimed. It felt nothing like Tyler had explained – it felt like she was right by his side again, her whole mind laid bare before him.

"Jake? Tyler? Tyler?!" Now he was hearing her. He leapt to his feet and spun to face the source of the panicked voice, finding his alien girlfriend was standing there, in all her spineless Drone glory, next to Tyler, who was on his knees clutching at his head. "What's – I don't understand!" Jake took a step forward, intending to close the distance between them, but stopped in his tracks. The walls were melting, the gunmetal grey panels deforming into their real shapes, the fake lighting flickering off and slowly plunging him into darkness. Tyler's illusion world was slipping. Advena managed to give him one last panicked look, before she suddenly disappeared, wiping herself from existence like a PowerPoint transitioning between slides. The air was now humid and suffocating, riddling Jake's bare skin with goosebumps, the confusion at his situation doing nothing to help the fear which overwhelmed him.

Sal, not needing to deal with more than one problem at a time, pulled an old trick out of his bag, using the Bond between Tyler and Jake to send a sleep signal to the sergeant, knocking him unconscious immediately.

"Tyler?" he asked worriedly, gently prying his partner's hands from his face. Blood trickled from the young man's nose, the occasional droplet gaining too much weight and falling from his lip, plummeting to the floor. He retrieved his handkerchief, already stained red from earlier, and held it to his nose.

"Ugh," he grunted. "Never let me do that again."

~~~~~~~~~~()~~~~~~~~~~

Jake groaned as he slowly came to, placing a hand on his forehead as if to steady it in the sudden onslaught of dizziness he was experiencing. He slowly took in his surroundings, finding himself on the familiar springy cushions of his couch, the synthetic material sticking to his back when he sat up. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass sliding door set into the side of his lounge, hitting the back of a one-armed Xenomorph runner whose head rested in the lap of none other than Tyler Doelle. The scientist glanced up from his PDA device when he heard the leathery squeak of movement.

"What happened?" Jake demanded. He winced and adjusted his combat vest in a vain attempt to shift them away from where it had been digging into his skin for the hours he'd spent asleep.

"You Bonded with Advena while being Bonded to me. A human brain isn't strong enough to handle two consciousnesses at once, but apparently mine is, so she jumped across our link from your head to mine."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if Advena's current body is a 'living USB stick', then she just got plugged into me. For just a few seconds there, she shared all the parts of my brain she currently lacks, allowing herself to become fully conscious and aware."

"So… she was an illusion? Part of your fake world?" Tyler put his tablet down and steepled his fingers, pursing his lips in thought for a moment.

"Not quite. I felt her, the real her. She made an illusion of herself using my brain, if that makes any sense. So yes, she was an illusion, but an illusion made by her own self, in which sense making her real on all levels except physical." Jake didn't really know what to say to that, hell, he didn't know if he really understood it. Telepathy was such a complicated thing, and every time he thought he was figuring it out, it would be revealed to him that the slightest variation in a subspecies gave entirely different rules to live by. "Anyway, now that you're awake Sal and I can head off to get him a new body. I'll catch ya later, Jacob." Tyler stretched as he rose to his feet, his actions unconsciously mirrored by his Bonded partner, before the duo made to take their leave.

"Oh, and Tyler?" The scientist paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to his friend. "Thank you. For everything you did back there." Tyler turned back to the door and silently slipped outside, but before he did, Jake thought he caught a glimpse of a happy smile gracing the young man's lips.