Chapter 8

So, maybe promising monthly updates right before the busiest time of year wasn't the brightest move I've ever made. I apologize for not keeping my promise and I'm going to do my best to keep up the monthly update schedule from now on.

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Elizabeth tried to call out to Olunnhar as she swung dizzyingly in his grip, tried to warn him about centipedes' acidic blood, and about the danger lurking in the storage room in front of them, but all that came out were more screams. She wasn't sure if she was screaming in terror or disgust or perhaps even relief at being rescued, but whatever it was quickly became a cry of pain as she felt the giant centipede's legs dig into her flesh as it resisted Olunnhar's attempt to pull it free.

My suit, my suit! It's going to rip my suit! If that happened, how would she get back to the escape pod safely? She wanted to communicate this to Olunnhar somehow, but she was too panicked to try and figure out how to tell him. All she knew how to do was scream and hope for the best.

Olunnhar's other hand seized her shoulder in a vise-like grip. Before she had time to wonder what he was doing, he slammed his thumb into the huge centipede's eye. Or mouth. Or whatever it was. She felt the creature's grip tighten for a second as it spasmed violently, then it immediately relaxed as thick, black blood came oozing out the sides of the opening, coating Olunnhar's thumb and dripping down the sides of the creature's head. The acidic fluid didn't seem to bother Olunnhar, but Elizabeth herself tensed up as she saw thick droplets of it start running down the creature's body toward her leg.

Quick as a flash, Olunnhar jerked the centipede in one direction and Elizabeth herself in the other. The dying monster, no longer able to maintain its grip on her, was pulled from her leg and flung against the wall with a harsh splat!

Elizabeth's stomach lurched violently as she felt Olunnhar roughly and one-handedly tuck her under his arm. Then he was running, and for a moment, Elizabeth thought that all the swinging around had made her dizzy and screwed up her sense of direction, because it seemed as though Olunnhar was running toward the open doorway to the storage room instead of away from it. Then she realized the yawning dark doorway was rapidly approaching her and she wasn't mistaken at all. For a moment, she actually thought he was going to go inside that room of a thousand, crawling horrors, and she screamed in both protest and pure, unbridled terror.

He skidded to a halt only a few feet away from the doorway, as if heeding her protest, and Elizabeth saw him raise the hand that wasn't holding her. It glistened darkly with the centipede's blood as he started touching something on the wall. A round…plaque of some sort.

No, not a plaque. It was one of those "keypads" with the symbols on it, like the one she had used to enter the spaceship earlier. She watched as he frantically touched an array of different symbols, his hand moving so fast that it was impossible to follow the pattern and make out the combination. He finished by tapping the bottommost symbol twice, and then there was a horrid screeching noise from above them.

She flinched instinctively, suddenly sure it was the cry of some giant monster come to finish them off, but saw it was only the door, slowly, and (from the sound of it), reluctantly closing, sealing off the remaining centipedes inside the room. Thank the heavens that it, although damaged, still worked enough to close completely when the code was entered.

That still left dozens, if not hundreds of the little monsters on this side of the door, however. Elizabeth had only a second to wonder what Olunnhar was going to do about them before the world spun dizzyingly once again and then Olunnhar was sprinting in the opposite direction, his long powerful strides practically rattling her teeth as he ran. He reached the other end of the hallway quickly and then turned to the left and continued up the "leg" of the horseshoe-shaped ship.

I should have just gone that way to begin with, she thought with dismay. If I hadn't had to stop and check out that hallway, none of this would have happened. What if he hadn't found me? What if he'd been too far away to hear my screams? It was a mistake to even come here…I was a fool, I was a fool, I was a fool…

She yelped in surprise as he took a sharp left and then stopped quickly. It was hard to see what he was doing in her current position, but she felt his other arm move and guessed he was punching a code into another keypad. Her suspicions were confirmed when she heard the sound of a door opening, smoothly this time, and soon she was carried inside.

The door slid shut behind them and she practically wilted in relief, knowing the centipedes were safely sealed up on the other side. Of course, that didn't mean there weren't any on this side-the ship had been crawling with them after all, and with that doorway standing half-open, even some of the big ones could have escaped earlier and been anywhere-but at least the huge horde that had been after her was sealed away.

Her relief changed to surprise as she was set down roughly by Olunnhar, who then straightened up to his full height to tower over her. In that odd spacesuit, there was barely anything humanoid about him, other than his basic shape, and for an irrational moment, Elizabeth felt afraid of the rubbery-skinned, bestial looking abomination she knew was her friend.

As if to dispel her fear, Olunnhar pulled the helmet free, but the face it revealed was twisted with fury. He dropped the helmet with a meaningless thunk and knelt down to her level. Elizabeth backed up instinctively and bumped into the closed door. With nowhere to run, she was forced to simply stand there as Olunnhar started screaming-no, roaring at her.

With his deep, snarling voice and the unintelligibility of his harsh language, his lecture could be described as nothing else. Elizabeth remembered just how adamant he had been at breakfast earlier that she not accompany him to the ship. Yet now, here she was, and any excuse she could make, even if he could understand it, seemed pathetic when faced against that booming fury.

Maybe she had seen something she wasn't supposed to see, and would need to be punished for it. Or maybe she'd done something she wasn't supposed to do. Maybe she'd accidentally touched something and ruined it, or, by luring those centipedes out of that storage room, made whatever Olunnhar had been doing on this ship ten times more difficult or dangerous. Maybe he was so angry he'd hate her because of it. Maybe…

She felt his hands seize her shoulders and give her a rough shake. Although, given his size, what felt rough to her was probably a very gentle shake coming from him. She looked up in surprise and caught her breath when she looked into his eyes.

They were filled with tears. Even more, they were filled with terror. And anguish. He shook her again and growled more nonsense at her, but she suddenly realized she didn't need to speak his language to understand what he was saying. His expression was all the translation she needed.

He wanted to know what the hell she thought she was doing. He was telling her she could have been killed. He wanted to know what she thought would have happened if he hadn't heard her screams or had not gotten to her in time. He was telling her that he'd almost lost her, and then he would have been alone.

Alone…

Suddenly, she remembered the terror she'd felt the other day when he'd disappeared for hours. Before she'd found him in the supply room. She'd been afraid he'd abandoned her, left her to go back to his ship, fix it and fly home. To leave her utterly alone on this moon.

"Olunnhar…" she whispered, tears filling her own eyes. "I'm sorry…"

And she was. Even as an inner voice protested, told her that this never would have happened if he hadn't been so secretive, if he'd allowed her to come with him or at least tried to explain the danger to her, even as it pointed out that she'd needed to do something besides sit back at the escape pod and hope he was working on getting them off the planet, even as she acknowledged that all those points were correct, she was still sorry. Not for coming to the ship, but for scaring him, for putting him through a fear like the one she'd wrestled with yesterday. No one deserved that, and she was sorry.

At the sight of the tears in her eyes, he wrapped his arms around her and held her to him in a very gentle, almost hesitant hug, as if he were overcompensating in trying to control his strength and not squash her. The sweetness of the gesture made her smile through her tears, and she hugged him back.

He finally let go and placed a hand gently beneath her chin, tilting her head so she was looking up at him. He was smiling gently down at her, and his thumb softly slid up her cheek, wiping a stray tear away. She only then noticed that his hands were uncovered. He'd taken his gloves off before touching her to avoid getting the centipede's acidic blood on her.

"Olunnhar," she whispered again, looking at him with the same tenderness that she saw on his face. "Thank you." She wasn't sure if she was thanking him for the rescue or for being worried about her instead of angry. Probably for both, but, strangely enough, the later seemed more important.

He smiled more broadly this time and leaned over to give her a gentle kiss on the top of the head. Then, with another smile, he straightened up to his full height once again, and held out a hand.

Elizabeth took it without hesitation, and felt his strong fingers wrap around her own in a gentle but firm grip. Feeling like a child getting ready to cross the street with a parent, she followed him to the door on the other side of the alcove. He punched another combination into the keypad beside the door, and a moment later, it slid open, revealing the cockpit beyond.

The place was a shambles, with broken bits of machinery strewn everywhere, and a huge mess of destroyed equipment in the center of it. She saw something that looked like a huge cannon, or maybe a telescope, lying in the wreckage, jagged splinters of metal sticking out from the base of it where it had torn itself free of its supports.

But despite the destruction that greeted her, that wasn't the first thing she noticed. No, that was the smell…

She didn't see the bodies of her crewmates, but she had no doubt they were still in the room somewhere. She'd forgotten it had been a few days since Olunnhar had killed them, and, although the smell wasn't terribly strong yet, it was enough to make her want to cover her nose. Even Olunnhar wrinkled his nose slightly, making her wonder why he hadn't simply removed the bodies when he came in here before. Maybe he'd worn his helmet the whole time and so hadn't smelled them until now.

But even if he hadn't removed them from the room, he must have moved them somewhere, because they weren't lying in the places they had been when she'd escaped from the ship during his rampage. Either he had moved them or they had gotten tossed about when the ship crashed and rolled. She suddenly imagined feeling a drop of liquid hit her arm and looking up to see Weyland's broken body wedged into a piece of wreckage above her. She shuddered.

Olunnhar held her hand tighter and gently led her over toward one of the pieces of equipment that was still standing. It no longer seemed to fit into the spot it was resting in, but was cockeyed, as though he'd had to right it and try to push it back where it belonged, but couldn't quite get it snug again. He released her hand and began pressing a series off odd white "buttons" on its control panel. At least, they seemed to function like buttons, although they were very different from any buttons she had ever seen before. Made of some gelatinous looking white substance, they didn't go down when pressed, but rather lit up, as if the touch of Olunnhar's finger were enough to activate them, no actual pressing required.

Olunnhar noticed her sudden interest in the machine, and gave her an amused look. A second later his hands were under her arms and he was hoisting her up as though she were a toddler, lifting her so she could have a closer look at the machine.

It had no screen or monitor of any sort, but instead projected a detailed hologram. A stunning blue star floated above the terminal, looking so real she was both tempted to reach out and touch it…and slightly afraid to for fear of burning her fingers. Olunnhar adjusted his grip so he was holding her with just his left arm wrapped around her waist. Then he tapped a few more buttons with his right hand and the glowing scene before her changed…no, zoomed inward. She watched as view drew nearer the star, and the star itself faded into the background as a planet appeared. It had tall, sharp mountain ranges and prominent polar ice caps, and the rest of it seemed to be covered by flat gray land intermixed with patchy "oceans" of the deepest blue.

She peered forward interestedly. Was that his home planet? It was very beautiful, and yet, at the same time, looked so cold and forbidding.

Olunnhar pressed another button and the planet suddenly sprouted a multitude of sharp red spikes. Now he reached out to touch his hand to one, and the planet quickly rotated so that particular spike was pointing toward them.

Now Olunnhar pressed another button and she heard the machine begin humming very quietly. At the same time, a series of symbols like the ones on the keypads appeared beside the planet and began cycling rapidly, reminding her of a counter. Were the strange symbols numbers, then? Was he sending a signal of some sort, or even a message?

Maybe those spikes were advanced communication towers. She wondered vaguely why his people didn't use satellites for that kind of thing, but maybe whatever towers they had built were better or more efficient than satellites. In any event, she was quite certain he was trying to contact his people. It had been two-thousand years, but that didn't mean his people didn't still exist, or that they weren't still listening to the stars, on the lookout for wayward travelers.

The "numbers" cycled endlessly, never slowing or changing, and she could tell by his silence and the sagging of his posture that he was getting no answer. She twisted a bit to look up at him, to smile at him or say something comforting, but before she could, he leaned over and set her down, perhaps interpreting her twisting as restlessness. She didn't mind too much though…there wasn't anything else to look at and being held like that was uncomfortable, especially with the wound in her abdomen. Although it had been nearly healed this morning, it now felt sore and tender, as if trying to fight off the centipedes and then being hauled around roughly by Olunnhar had put strain on the healing muscles. She decided she'd better go easy on it for the rest of the day.

She saw Olunnhar reach out and touch another red spike on the hologram. The planet rotated once more and a new counter began. Although she couldn't see as well from the floor, she could tell by Olunnhar's expression that he was getting the same results. It made her heart ache for him.

She wished she could say something comforting to him. Tell him that just because he wasn't getting an answer didn't mean his people were all dead. Any number of things could have happened in two-thousand years. Maybe his people had moved offworld. Maybe some catastrophe had happened and they'd gone into a technological dark age...but were still living there. Heck, maybe it was something simple; like they'd torn down the radio towers he was trying to communicate with and built bigger and better ones in new locations. Maybe they'd finally moved into the satellite age!

That last one almost made her chuckle, but she bit it back. This wasn't funny, and the last thing Olunnhar needed was to see her snickering at him. She reached up and placed a comforting hand on the small of his back instead.

He jerked slightly, as if startled, and looked down at her. She rubbed his back comfortingly as she smiled tenderly up at him. "It's going to be all right," she told him softly.

He gave her the saddest, most forced smile she'd ever seen and stroked her hair absently. A moment later, he was touching the hologram, trying to contact yet another communication station.

Elizabeth stood with him for a while, as he continued his futile attempts to get in touch with his people, but he took no further notice of her, and eventually she decided that since she couldn't help or comfort him, she'd might as well go and look for David while he worked.

She slipped away quietly, hoping he wouldn't notice (she was afraid he might try and make her stay near him for her own safety). He didn't appear to, and she made her way toward the overturned "cannon" and the rest of the wreckage surrounding it. That was where the smell seemed to be coming from.

Wishing she hadn't left her helmet back in the hallway, she covered her nose and slipped around the pile of broken equipment.

There they were.

He'd piled her crewmates in a heap, tossed them back where they'd be out of the way like a bunch of trashbags. For a moment, she was struck senseless by the utter callousness of it. The efficient brutality with which he'd dispatched each and every one of them during the confrontation came flooding back, and it was almost impossible to believe that the creature who had done this was the same one who had saved her life less than an hour ago, who had comforted her during a storm, who had drawn pictures with her in the kitchen this morning, who loved chocolate and didn't know how to say the "th" sound at the end of her name. In fact, she was suddenly glad that the broken equipment blocked her view of him, because she might have been afraid to even turn and look at him.

It wasn't so much that she felt bad for any of them. Weyland was an awful person and the others had been reduced to nothing more than his lackeys, in her eyes. Even Ford, who she'd once been on friendly terms with, had been willing to assist Weyland in dumping her in Hypersleep to incubate an alien horror, and had stood aside without even a sideways glance when Weyland's guard had hit Elizabeth to keep her quiet during the confrontation with Olunnhar.

No, she couldn't muster up much pity for them. But still, Olunnhar hadn't known these things about them. He'd simply slaughtered them for existing, for being a species he considered unfit for life. Even if they had accidentally angered him somehow, he hadn't even paused to consider if maybe there had been a misunderstanding. He'd simply killed sapient creatures without a second thought and then tossed them in a heap out of his way.

It was hard to reconcile the obvious humanity she'd come to recognize in him with the actions that had resulted in the scene before her…

Ford looked at her with cloudy eyes, her head twisted back at an unnatural angle due to a broken neck. Weyland's bodyguard's face was obscured by dark clotted blood from a gaping head wound, and as for Weyland himself…

She shuddered. Something had been at him. His face had been peeled away, leaving his empty-eyed skull to grin up at her.

She stepped back, and it was only partly in revulsion. If something had been eating the bodies back here, it was probably more of those centipedes. She didn't want to blunder right into more danger. She didn't know if any of the big ones from the supply room had made it this far, but, she didn't want to take foolish chances.

Still, she knew she needed to do something. She didn't see David's head, but she could see one his legs sticking out from under the pile, so she knew the rest of him was probably under there was well. She needed to move the other bodies out of the way.

She hesitated. If there were any giant centipedes in here, they probably would have attacked her by now. Unless they were full and sleeping somewhere. Maybe underneath the bodies. Or inside them. She shuddered.

What she needed was a pole of some sort. Something she could use to move the bodies but keep a safe distance. She thought for a moment, trying to think if there was anything in this room that she could use, and remembered the metal "splinters" she'd seen in the wreckage of the giant "cannon."

She hesitantly poked her head out from behind the broken equipment and saw Olunnhar still standing forlornly at the communications terminal, still engaged in his hopeless task. Hoping he'd stay that way, she crept out from behind the wreckage and approached the base of the cannon, walking gingerly due to her sore abdomen.

Once there, she paused, looking at the large "splinters" jutting out of the broken base with curiosity. It was quite strange, because she didn't think metal splintered like that when it broke. Of course, this was an alien spaceship, so maybe it wasn't metal but some new substance she wasn't familiar with.

She drew nearer, wondering if she would be able to snap one of them off, and her feet hit something that made a dull scraping sound against the floor. She looked down and saw, to her relief, that there were three of the splinters lying on the floor, apparently having broken off when the support structure snapped. She picked up the longest one and noted that, while it felt like metal, it was much lighter than she expected. Still strong though…she could not get it to flex even slightly when she tried to bend it.

Deciding it would do, she crept back over to the pile of bodies after making sure Olunnhar still had his back turned. Doing her best to breathe through her mouth, since she now needed both hands to handle the pole, she gently tried to push Ford's body off the top of the pile. Both ends of her new poker were quite sharp, so she tried to use a sweeping motion instead of a stabbing one. To her relief, it didn't take much to dislodge her former crewmate's body, although the rigor mortis that had set in during the past few days meant that the woman remained in her unnaturally twisted position even after she hit the floor with a soft plop.

Elizabeth hesitated for a moment before moving onto the next body, but no centipedes crawled out of the freshly disturbed pile. Screwing up her courage once more, she pushed Weyland out of the way, exposing a flash of blond hair beneath him.

David! She forced herself to wait a moment more, until she was sure that no centipedes were lurking underneath, then she took her pole and swept David's head out of the pile toward her.

Already she knew; even before she knelt down to examine it, that David's head was non-operational. There wasn't a flicker of movement from it when she'd uncovered it or swept it toward her. Like the others, David's eyes were still open, but they were just as dead. Nothing but lifeless synthetic orbs from which all sentience had been lost. The bottom half of his head and neck were covered with sticky, dried, white "blood," and the wires and tubing sticking out of his neck were still slick with the stuff. It made Elizabeth grimace and pull her hand away. It felt too much like she was touching one of the real bodies.

Although she had been afraid David would no longer be functional, she wasn't too surprised. It had been days, after all, and he had been damaged quite severely. Besides, she still held out hope that there might be a way to repair him. He must have needed to perform maintenance on himself during their long journey, and perhaps some of that equipment was in the escape pod. True, she didn't know how to use it, and true, she didn't know if it could repair such grievous damage, but it was worth a try.

She looked back at the rest of the bodies hesitantly, wondering if she should bring David's body back with them too. If they could fix the head, maybe they could also reattach it. But then she thought of Charlie, and of the things David had done to her, like trying to make her carry the squid-monster to term, and spying on her dreams and stealing her cross necklace-

Her necklace!

Now that she knew the depths of his obsession with her, she was certain he hadn't taken it away from her because it might have been "contaminated" with whatever had poisoned Charlie. No, he'd taken it because it was one of her most important possessions, and he wanted it as a "keepsake"." And if that was the case, she was certain he would still have it with him.

She quickly used the poker to push Weyland's bodyguard's corpse out of the way, freeing David's body from beneath the pile. Kneeling beside it, she began searching his pockets for the necklace.

She found it quickly enough, still in its little vial, looking like a piece of evidence someone had recovered from a crime scene. In a way, she supposed it was. The thought made her heart ache. Charlie… Had David poisoned him just to get him out of the way? Or had it been something he'd been ordered to do by Weyland? If they did managed to get David operational again, that was going to be one of the first questions she asked him. And he had better hope that the answer wouldn't make her decide to kick his head across the landscape outside like it was a football, translation needs be damned.

She blinked back the angry tears forming in her eyes and pulled the necklace free of the vial. She pressed it gently against her cheek, taking comfort in its familiar shape, its familiar weight. In the familiar smoothness of metal against her skin. In the memories just the touch of it brought back. She smiled.

Even if they didn't manage to get David working again, coming here hadn't been a total loss.

Something tickled against her wrist.

She lurched to her feet with a scream, managing to hang onto the necklace but dropping her poker with a clatter. The regular-sized centipede that had been crawling up her arm fell to the floor and scurried back underneath the bodies as she practically leapt backwards away from them.

"LEEZABET!" came a deep shout from across the room and then there were footsteps running toward her.

Well, she supposed there would be no hiding what she was doing from Olunnhar now. Then again, she had found what she was looking for, and it was time to broach the subject with him anyway. Taking several deep breaths, she tried to calm herself down, wishing she hadn't overreacted. It had only been a little centipede. She gave Olunnhar an embarrassed wave when he charged around the corner of the broken equipment, looking ready to fight of an entire army of the monsters.

"Leezabet?" he asked her in his rumbly voice as he came over to her, still looking worried. He knelt down to her level and touched her shoulders, her arms, her neck, her back, as if searching for injuries.

She stopped him with a wave of her hand before he could search anywhere else. "I'm fine," she told him, giving him a big smile for emphasis. "I'm just startled." She made a crawling motion with her fingers up her left arm to illustrate the centipede, then smacked at herself and gave a fake little yelp. She looked back up at him sheepishly, and shook her head as if to say aren't I an idiot?

To her surprise, he was looking at the necklace clutched in her hand, as if it had caught his eye during her charades. She smiled at him again and held it out to him. "It's very important to me," she told him as he took it gingerly from her, the chain looking like fine thread in his big thick fingers. She wished she could explain its significance to him, and wondered how she would even go about trying. He certainly looked like he needed an explanation of some sort. He was looking at the cross with what looked like disbelief.

What, had he never seen a cross before? She was certain that his culture would be familiar with such a simple pattern. Did a cross mean something very different to him? Maybe it was something rude, or obscene. Was she going around with a symbol that said "Fuck You" in the Mala'kak language around her neck? The idea made her laugh out loud.

His head snapped up and he looked almost aghast, as if she's slapped him across the face, as if she'd said something particularly filthy about his mother, as if he couldn't believe the sheer nerve of her.

"No, no, I'm not laughing at you," she told him, giving him a fond smile to show she meant no harm. "It's all right," she said kindly, placing her hands over his own and giving them a caress.

He jerked them away as if her touch stung. His eyes glared down at her, looking dark and…hurt.

"Olunnhar?" she said, concerned. Had she offended him? She hadn't meant to. "Hey…" she said softly, stepping toward him and holding her hands out peaceably. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

He threw the necklace down with a snarl and a single angry word that she didn't need David's assistance to understand.

Now it was her turn to look shocked. "Hey!" she said reproachfully. "Don't throw it! I said I was sorry!" She leaned over to pick it up.

When she straightened up, she nearly dropped the necklace again. Olunnhar's face was twisted with fury, and there was bright hate gleaming in his black eyes.

"Olunnhar?" She took an instinctive step backwards at the sight of the pure rage on his face.

That was probably the only thing that saved her life. His huge fist came whistling toward her head so fast she barely saw it. It missed her face by centimeters.

She screamed, more in surprise than fear, and backed away from him so fast she was almost running. She only got a few steps before she tripped over something long and squishy (an arm? A leg?) and fell over backwards onto one of the corpses.

She barely had time to register the cold, almost jellylike texture of decaying flesh beneath her before she was being lifted up by strong and rough hands. She had time to scream Olunnhar's name before she went flying into one of the control panels so hard she felt its surface dent inward beneath her.

She slid to the ground with a moan, vision swimming, senses reeling, thoughts a jumble…he'd thrown her, and yet…that wasn't right. Olunnhar wouldn't throw her like that, Olunnhar wouldn't hurt her, she was all he had and he was all she had and they needed each other, had slept in one another's arms last night and he'd never hurt her.

But he had and the part of her brain that didn't give a fig about logic and sense told her he was going to do it again very soon if she didn't move.

Instinct forced her to kick out against the side of the control panel, pushing herself away from it just as something huge came rushing toward it. Self preservation made her twist onto her belly, force herself to her knees, lurch to her feet, heedless of the new pain she could feel in her old wound. She ran, and the pain and confusion and betrayal mattered nothing next to the need for survival. Already she could hear him behind her, closing the distance between them, and she looked desperately for an escape route, or even a temporary safe place out of his reach she could use to wait out his fury. The door they'd entered through was shutand she didn't know the combination to open it, and anyway, it led back to the centipedes in the hallway. There was another door though, a smaller one, directly across the room from the first, that was open. She didn't know where it led, but-

She screamed as a rough hand seized her hair and jerked her back, whipping her off her feet as if she were a rag doll. Another hand closed around her neck, twisting her around to face him. She choked for breath and kicked uselessly as he lifted her off the floor by the throat, his face twisted in a snarl. She tried to choke out his name, but his grip was so tight she couldn't get even a tiny sound out. And she doubted it would have done any good even if she had. The look on his face told her that trying to appeal to either his rational side or his emotional side were both equally as futile as trying to reason with a grizzly bear that had decided it wanted to rip her head off.

It wasn't just anger in that look, either. No, there was something deeper underneath it, a pain so intense it had stolen his sanity in one fell swoop. He looked as though she had done something so awful he could barely comprehend it. He looked as if she had stabbed him in the back the second he had let his guard down. He looked like she had hurt him just when he thought he could no longer be hurt any further.

He looked betrayed.

In fact, there were tears in his eyes.

Then she was sailing through the air as he threw her back toward the broken cannon and the pile of bodies. She screamed as she hit the ground and felt her abdominal wound tear open. She tried to get to her feet once more, but the pain doubled her over, made even shuffling on her hands and knees an agony. She sobbed in both pain and terror as she collapsed back onto her belly.

He was going to kill her. He was going to finish off the final crewmember of the Prometheus in the same place where all this had started. And then he'd leave her there, with all the others he'd killed. Everything that had happened in the past two days had all been for nothing, and she was going to die.

She heard him running toward her, and she flailed uselessly, even knowing there was no chance of escape. She screamed in protest and tried to drag herself forward and her fingers touched something long and smooth.

The broken piece of "metal." Her "poker."

Her only chance.

She twisted onto her back just as he threw himself at her with all his weight, and the poker became a spear as she thrust it upward.

Olunnhar roared in both surprise and pain as the spear hit home, and Elizabeth screamed with him.

/ / / / / / / / / / / /

Well, crap. That escalated quickly, didn't it?

See you all in March! Pinkie swear! :P