Chapter 11: Leaving
Vaughn looked over the grotesque display of death. There were skulls everywhere, and very few were alike. Huge ones, small ones, some with large chunks or gashes missing from them. They were like nothing Vaughn had ever seen before. What looked like some kind of brutal dinosaur, some type of bull with four horns, a couple of skulls that he recognized too, a pair of Tak'kah, twice the size of the one he had killed. There were numerous other skulls as well, all of them quite alien. Then a group on the far all in particular caught his eye. He slowly walked over to them, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. His heart raced and he began to sweat. He could hear the pulse rifles pouring their ammo into the unknown and horrible screeching. He could remember the darkness swallowing up his fellow marines one by one like it had been yesterday. He remembered them as they were drug off into the caves, bloody and screaming for help. The gunfire was louder now; he could feel the chill of the night, and the heat of the napalm flamethrower being used a few feet away from him. He could feel the horror again as his gun stopped firing, the digital ammo readout reading "00". Then the claws tearing into his flesh as he too began to be carried away... "ooman!"
Vaughn snapped back to consciousness and turned to see Ka-jeal standing behind him. "I said to follow me, you will learn quickly that not following orders is a bad mistake. This time you are fine since you just got here, but now you know." Vaughn just nodded with out saying a word then wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. As they walked away, Vaughn looked back at the group of skulls and muttered to himself. "Bugs..." they walked down the hall and passed a room to the right, then another. The hallway finally ended and led into a large room, with large windows, controls and two seats, it was a room similar to the cockpit of the pod he had landed in. the predator sat down in the seat to the left and motioned for Vaughn to sit in the other one. There was a small blinking light on one of the panels. The predator pressed it, and a display screen flickered to life, and showed the angry face of the grand arbiter. The arbiter noticed Vaughn sitting there, and his expression quickly changed. "Ooman!" The arbiter spoke again in his near perfect English. "I am glad that you have passed the trials!" Vaughn was stilling a little shocked by the faces of these aliens, and couldn't bring himself to look directly at them. The fact that they were quite ugly had gone well with their somber attitudes, but the excitement that these two showed at his passing of the trials didn't fit them well at all, and it was quite funny. Vaughn just nodded and forced himself not to laugh, remembering what Ka-jeal had said. After some talking between the arbiter and Ka-jeal in there own language, the screen click off, and Vaughn was told to strap in. the ship rose from the planet with a steady vibration and hum. They shot towards the heavens, leaving the planet of the ooman trials behind.