CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Blinded once more by complete darkness, Cassandra pulled to halt just behind Lewis once she had run through the opening in the wall.
She was greeted by the terrifying sounds of a ferocious battle that she could barely see.
The queen shrieked and hissed in a high pitched and angered voice as the hunters that attacked her and her offspring pressed on despite the darkness, the numbers around them, and their injuries. It seemed that only one or two hunters were now utilizing their blue flame weapons, Cassandra noticed.
Only a few short bursts from the weapons lighted the area, but it was enough to see all that she needed to.
The Queen of the drones charged forth in one instant, snapping her inner set of jaws and hissing wildly as she lunged for the alien fighters.
In that moment, Cassandra and the others opened fire at the queen. She apparently did not notice, or care, that the small cluster of humans were in her hive as well until they fired upon her.
She pulled back from her attack and whirled around madly. In the next flash of alien weapon fire, Cassandra could see the queen charging in her direction like an angry bull.
She thrust her head down and rammed her massive crown at the small cluster of still firing humans. The flicker of light had died out so quickly that there was almost no time to perceive the danger they were in and react to it.
Cassandra felt the collision with her shoulder as the queen grazed her.
A sharp point at the tip of one of the queen's mantle protrusions dug into her arm as the queen pulled her head backwards. Cassandra howled with pain as the already injured arm was gored even more.
She barely realized that she was attached to the queen for just a moment by a thin layer of tissue that was quickly tearing from her bone. As the monster hissed and spun around once more towards the aliens that were attacking from her other end, Cassandra was flung to the ground at the feet of the alien troops.
She was only vaguely aware of the shouting crowd somewhere in the darkness behind her and she was quickly pulled to her feet by the hand of the alien leader and cast off to the side, as though she was merely in his way.
She prepared to aim her weapon and realized that it was not where it should have been. Frightened, she stared at her empty hands that she could not see.
Her eyes shot around the dark room searching for the weapon she could not find. The queen hissed a wild shriek and lashed out her tail.
Cassandra did not see the jet black tail in the lightless space, but she heard the deep thud as the queen's tail collided with the hunter warrior next to her.
She felt a spray of blood hit her face and glanced over to see the hunter rising off his feet.
She dropped to the ground before she was hit again with the mangled corpse as the queen tossed it aside. She heard the alien's fire caster clatter to the hard ground somewhere close by and instantly panned her hands around frantically searching for the weapon.
The hunters around her roared out, either in anger or fear, she could not be sure. She looked back and saw the hunter group pressing in closer to the now surrounded queen.
The hunters attacked in a circular formation, fully surrounding the queen as she hissed and howled and separated her back end slowly from the giant tubule through which her eggs were deposited. Continued weapon fire and shouting from the human group told her those very eggs were hatching and adding an additional element of danger.
"Great…" Cassandra muttered to herself as she continued to grope the ground while the alien pack surrounded its quarry, howling and striking at her with spears as more drones began to rush into the scene to their mother's aide.
She found what she was looking for and Cassandra pulled herself to her feet, watching the battle in the flickering weapon fire as she shot off the alien weapon.
She set her eyes on the queen that was rearing towards the alien group just in front of her, howling evilly at the warriors.
Cassandra clenched her jaw tight, gripped the large, cumbersome and heavy alien weapon in both arms, cradling it more closely to her than a baby and placed her hand over the trigger.
She nearly fired the weapon but the queen leaped suddenly into the air and sent the warriors scattering to avoid the impact of claws, teeth, and spiny tail as she landed amidst the group. Cassandra instinctively leapt to one side and nearly fell as she toppled over the alien warrior that had been struck down next to her.
She glanced down at the warrior as though to consider her apologizes to the carcass or gratitude for the weapon, but quickly realized that he was not yet dead.
Severely injured, but still conscious, the alien fighter was moving and gurgling a dying growl.
Cassandra glanced to the warriors around her and for a moment she stared at the expressionless mask over the leader's head. He seemed to be acknowledging his fallen soldier, or that she had taken his weapon, she couldn't quite be sure.
Cassandra felt chills run down her spine as she heard the mutilated alien pressing buttons on his left arm piece. She glanced around and saw the now familiar bright red display screen gleam in the darkness.
"Oh no, not again," she muttered and yelled out to anyone who would listen to run.
The red lights on the arm band shone through the void like a blazing red flare, and attracted the attention of Lewis and the others on the far side of the room, as they suddenly realized why Cassandra was yelling to get out.
For just a moment, their fire fight slowed as each person glanced in the direction of the red lighted panel. Lewis hollered to Cassandra as his eyes locked on to her in the shadow of the glowing display.
She jumped to her feet and quickly glided around the room, circling wide away from the queen. The warriors opened fire on the queen and followed Cassandra without hesitation.
Cassandra picked up speed and bolted towards Lewis and the others. She caught up to him without delay and nearly toppled him over as the group pressed into the tunnel beyond them for a hasty escape. The aliens were right behind her.
As they made their escape from the queen's chamber, the injured warrior on the ground made his best effort to produce a savage howl and the queen turned on him.
The queen charged at the howling alien and hunched over the top of him. She shot her secondary set of jaws out of her mouth and they collided abruptly with the fallen warrior's forehead.
The sickly crunching sound of punctured skull did not drain out the sound of the increased beeping from the activated self -destruct device.
In the tunnels beyond the queen's chamber the humans rushed to put as much distance as possible between them and the blast while aliens, once in an open enough portion of tunnel to get to the lead, quickly put themselves in front of the humans.
They bolted over the train tracks towards the lighted exit.
Cassandra only concentrated on keeping her breath and keeping pace with the fleeing group.
Excited by the bolting exit the two groups had made from the exit they created, Carlos and the others jumped to their feet from their holding point a few blocks away and were already starting to dance on their feet, ready to run with the alien group that shot past them with tremendous force.
"RUN!" Lewis howled to Carlos as he and the others approached with speed that almost equaled the powerful aliens'.
The small cluster did not hesitate. They immediately turned around and followed the alien group down the street, far away from the core of the hive.
Carlos yanked the man with the broken leg off the ground and the man cried out in agony. Lewis tucked his arm under the man's other side as he sped by and together, the two carried the other with as much speed as they could produce.
Cassandra shot past them, but slowed and turned, not wanting to abandon her companions. Briefly, she hoped they would just drop their burden and flee on their own light feet, but she quickly cursed herself for thinking that.
Every human life was invaluable and even a broken leg should not stop one from having a chance. This broken leg was about to stop four, however, and she couldn't help but to think about that as she glanced back to the aliens well beyond her now.
While she waited impatiently for Lewis and Carlos to drag the injured man along with them a shockwave rattled the ground below her feet.
The force of the quake was so powerful it sent everyone flying through the air and crashing to the ground. Cassandra hit the ground with a certain thud and the alien weapon she had clattered out of her grip.
She pulled herself up, grabbing the weapon as she tried to stand. She noticed the apartment building in front of her was cracking clean up the middle. The street fractured and the ripple of the shock caused windows to fall out all around her.
Suddenly, the tall office building that must have been directly over the queen's chamber exploded into a giant burst of flames.
The flames engulfed the buildings around it and the earthquake rattled loose all the structures along the streets for several blocks.
Cassandra howled to Lewis and Carlos amidst the shower of falling stone and pouring glass and the two picked up their pace, dragging the man along with them hurriedly. They bolted down the street, cautiously avoiding the separating road and falling buildings around them.
They ran as far and as fast as they could, powered by the adrenaline surging through their veins. They sprinted with racehorse strides away from the flaming core of the explosion as the buildings around them rattled loose and fell to the street.
Lewis shouted to Cassandra to motivate her to keep moving and not look back, but she let her eyes fall back behind her despite his warning.
She took a deep breath and turned immediately around, igniting another burst of speed, desperate to outrun the flames that were quickly chasing behind them.
With wide eyes and an uncontrollably pounding heart, Cassandra bolted away from the explosion with all of her might. Lewis and Carlos kept pace with her, dragging an unconscious man along with them.
They caught up to the other people and the alien group many blocks away as she had begun to grow weary from the escape and her speed dwindled. The three continued to press on for several more blocks, getting themselves well clear of the massive cloud of dust, smoke, and cinder debris that engulfed the rest of the city streets.
Finding it difficult to breath, Cassandra began a fit of coughing and fell to the ground for a moment before she was able to pull herself up. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that the aliens well ahead of her had slowed their pace and appeared to be looking back to survey the damage and possibly the human survivors.
As Lewis approached, Cassandra jumped back to her feet and found the ability to escape another three blocks before collapsing to an exasperated stop.
Struggling for breath himself, Carlos sat on the ground next to her, while Lewis forced himself to stay on his feet as he fought to breathe. The man Carlos and Lewis dragged with them was unconscious and as Carlos evaluated him, his sobbing sister bound over to him, looking to Carlos for an update.
"He's alive, we just have to get that leg set." Carlos said between rugged breaths.
"Holy shit," someone gasped from nearby. "You're all crazy. These bastards blowing everything up, and you guys go right into a hive to follow them!"
Cassandra tilted her head back and glanced towards the path of destruction. She took a deep, ragged breath, relieved that they had managed to outrun the explosion.
She watched the thick smoke cloud rise up above the buildings and trial towards the dark sky above. Her eyes panned the skyline that she could see, searching for the lights of the alien vessels she knew still floated above.
She could not see the lights of any of the alien vessels in the night sky and as she let her eyes sink back down to the ground, she spotted the alien group, halted a block away.
The shouting man continued his outburst which quickly spurred a brief fight as the aliens looked on. Cassandra pulled herself wearily to her feet and stalked away from the fighting men who were shouting about destruction, poor decisions, heading off on their own, and finding a place to camp and recoup from the battles.
"All right! All right!" Lewis yelled angrily and shot his gun into the air to get the attention of the brawling group.
Cassandra stared at Lewis as he stared at the shocked and silent men.
Lewis tipped his head and looked towards the alien group, as though considering them too in whatever decision making process he was thinking inside his mind. The warrior group looked equally exhausted and overwhelmed as the tiny cluster of humans.
For a moment no one made any sound or movement. It seemed as though each person was succumbing to the burden of what had just taken place.
Cassandra sighed deeply as she stared at the injured, lost looking group of men and aliens that lined the block. She felt her eyes grow suddenly watery.
She could not recall the last time she cried at all, but as she stared at the horrified faces of the people that huddled together in the quiet street, she felt ready to collapse and sob on the spot.
Everyone on the street, human or otherwise, was laced with injuries. As Cassandra surveyed the scene, she could see bleeding wounds and shaking, exhausted bodies.
She only now realized fully what injuries her own body had suffered. As she stroked her wounds gently tears ran down her face. She swallowed and glanced towards the alien group as they slowly began to move.
The remainder of the human company looked down the street towards the aliens, each watching with fear in anticipation of what might happen next.
For the first time since the creatures had landed on Earth, the alien group that they had been clung to from the start was walking towards the remaining humans. The bloody people in the street stared at the nine injured warriors as they slowly approached.
Cassandra could sense that no one around her was certain why the alien warriors were heading towards the humans. She found herself briefly considering multiple scenarios, the top of which was that the aliens were planning on heading back into the hive they had all just left.
She swallowed, hoping that this would not be the case. She glanced back down the street, just to reassure herself that there was no hive left to return to.
The warrior aliens stopped behind their leader, just a few feet from the human group. Lewis stared at the grey skinned alien leader.
His helmet removed, the leader stared at Lewis, Cassandra, and the others through his deep set golden eyes and ticked his long toothed outer mandibles together. Cassandra eyed the leader curiously.
His arm was glowing green with fluorescent blood still oozing from a large gash. Likewise, the leader's thigh and abdomen were cut and sliced. The others in his group had similar injuries, some far more severe.
To Cassandra, the alien group looked equally as defeated as the small group of humans felt. She wondered if the battle was more than they could have imagined.
She wondered if they had come to say 'goodbye'.
The glance only lasted a moment, before the leader spun around and stalked away, leaving a confused squadron of humans in his midst as the other warriors followed off behind their leader.
"What, are they leavin'?" Someone quickly asked with almost a panicked whisper.
"I don't know," Lewis said with a frown.
"They can't leave..." Another whispered through a shaky voice.
"They can do whatever they want," Lewis whispered grittily.
The humans watched the backs of the alien warriors stalk away down the street, each briefly discussing amongst themselves their thoughts over the aliens and options of what to do next.
"We should keep following them," Cassandra whispered forcefully over the murmured debate from the group.
"Yes, cause that's been working out really well so far." Someone snapped.
"We should stay with them," she repeated, determined.
Without another word, Cassandra started off tailing the alien group. In a moment, the others followed silently, though they could not come up with a solid reason for continuing the unusual alliance.
Everyone was injured and none stood a chance without the others around. The aliens had rounded a street corner and strode out of site, but finding what little remnants of energy they had, each person managed to break into a jog and follow after their alien companions.
It did not take long before they had caught up to the tail end of the alien group. They were moving much slower than Cassandra had ever seen before and they were leaving a trail of bright green blood with every step.
The alien group did not seem surprised that the humans had found them. The leader glanced to the small human party with a quick look that made Cassandra halfway wonder if he the way he had approached them was something of an invitation to follow, or a sign of respect.
She couldn't be sure, but it did seem as though the alien leader briefly acknowledged the group, almost like he was checking on them to make sure they were still coming along.
The aliens scanned each building they passed by, as did the humans. Their nerves were still tense and their senses were all on high alert.
Regardless of how well destroyed, there was still a hive not far away, and that could easily mean there would be roaming drone stragglers ready to attack at any given moment.
Warily, the groups walked through vacant street after vacant street. So closely together they tracked, it would be hard to consider from an outside glance, where the invisible line between the aliens and the humans was drawn.
Despite their wounds, neither species stopped for rest. They continued to walk, determined to get clear of the city, away from the threat of the hive. It took much longer than it should have, but eventually, the edge of the city was in sight.
Just at the other end of the block Cassandra was starting into, she could see a small stretch of grass lined roadway that led away from the town.
She felt a rush of relief at the distance she had put between herself and the remnants of the drone hive. The thoughts of all that had happened throughout the night rushed into and out of her mind and as she thought back to it all, she could hardly believe anyone had managed to survive.
She eyed the leader of the alien group once again. Even though there had been much loss, and many injuries, Cassandra could not help but feel that none would have survived without the group's leader directing the way.
She stared intently at his back as he walked, silently watching his gray hair sway as he strode forward. Suddenly he stopped and the group behind him halted in an instant.
The leader turned his head to the side as did his troops. Cassandra and the others held their breath and stared off the same direction, anxiously and nervously anticipating what they could not see to attack them.
The leader held deathly still for a moment. His wrist blades were bared and he looked perched, ready to pounce on whatever it was his alien eyes were spying.
It seemed that not even his troops saw the threat. Each of his group would look from their leader to building they stopped next to and back again, as though uncertain what the leader was seeing.
Cassandra stared through the shattered display window of the building as though she might see what the leader eyed before anyone else did. In the darkness of the room beyond the broken glass, there was nothing, but the leader still held his ground.
Lewis and Cassandra exchanged glances and a shaking survivor walked past them towards the window.
"What is it?" He whispered as he crept closer to the broken glass remnants.
Lewis reached forward to grab the man's shoulder to stop him before he got too close, but it was already apparent in that moment what the leader had been eyeing.
A quick flash of something moving leapt out of the window and the aliens sprung into action once more.
Each of the human group scattered and pointed their weapons into a ready position as they tried to focus back on what was happening. One alien howled and roared and Cassandra heard a distinct sound of crunching bug body as she spun around.
Two of the alien drones were freshly dead on the ground at the leader's feet. He swelled with rage as he spun around scanning for more enemies.
The attack had happened so quickly it seemed not even he was able to follow all of the action. Two more of his troops were laying flat out on the ground, faces hidden behind the sickly spindly legs of the slimy embryo implanting face hugger creatures.
Cassandra looked round and noticed that two of her own group littered the street with the same creatures securely suctioned to their heads.
As quickly as it had begun, the battle was over. The last of the straggler drones were dead and the only face huggers that seemed to be near were secured to their victims.
Cassandra glanced at the two downed men and the two aliens and eyed the leader once more. He growled ferociously as his wrist blades sheathed themselves inside his right arm gauntlet and he pulled out his spear from its mount on his back.
The others in his group remained silent as they watched him step towards their fallen comrades.
Without a moment of reprieve or mourning, with no uttering of any sort of prayer or passage, the leader smashed the bladed tip of his extended spear through the face hugger creature on the first of his fallen warrior's head.
Both hatchling creature and alien skull crunched and cracked under the brutal force of the spear head. The leader pulled the blood covered spear out of the firsts' skull, and still sizzling with acid blood, the blade was quickly embedded into the skull of the next former troop.
He growled deeply as he took a heavy stride towards the first of the two men on the ground.
"No!" Lewis snapped quickly, fearlessly stepping in front of the approaching leader and holding his palms out.
He took a slow, deep breath as he turned his head towards the two men on the ground before glancing back to the leader.
"No. They're my humans to deal with."
The leader, either understanding the words or the meaning of what Lewis had spoken, pressed a button on his spear as he turned away. The spear folded itself back into its own handle and he placed the compacted weapon back into its holder on his back pack as he stalked off slowly.
Lewis rounded on the two bodies at his feet. He swallowed and lowered his head as he raised his gun.
"My God, help us all," he whispered before he pulled the trigger.
Solemn and quiet, the two groups continued off together with only their thoughts to comfort them as they migrated.
Cassandra, though, found no comfort from her thoughts.
They were a heavy burden that were quickly weighing her down as she moved and with the injuries on her arm and leg unable to have a moment to rest or be tended to, she was growing ever weaker from the loss of blood.
Still, she continued to walk with her group, tailing just behind the five remaining warriors. They too were slowing in their gait. Perhaps it was the burden of their losses slowing them down, Cassandra wondered. Most likely, she thought, is was their loss of blood and their desire to rest and recuperate that was forcing them to move slower.
She eyed the leader carefully from her position behind him. He seemed to be aging as he slowed his walk. Still, he seemed determined not to stop. Now limping on his injured leg, he pressed on with no sound to reveal his pain.
Behind him, though, the ever-weakening human group was beginning to moan and grimace, complaining of their exhaustion and loss of blood and desire for rest.
Cassandra did not know whether it was the human group's vocalizations of their malcontent, or it was his own pain and suffering that finally brought the leader to a halt, but at any rate, and much to her own relief, the leader stopped.
He examined the outside of a building that he stood near carefully before deciding that it was a suitable resting spot. His troops followed him through a broken doorway and the small human cluster followed promptly.
Cassandra glanced around at the strip mall they were about to enter. She felt her body shiver warily as she headed indoors.
While the store they entered might serve as the perfect camping ground, with walls and roof overhead, access to an array of clothing, grooming supplies, perhaps food, and at least some first aid supplies, it was also a good size building for a bug colony to start a small hive in.
With a deep breath, she stepped through the doorway. She could feel her heart picking up its pace as she stepped over the threshold.
Halfway expecting a surge of drones to pounce on her, Cassandra was taken aback by the odd glow that she could see coming from the far end of the hallway.
The warriors clicked and rattled to one another quickly as they entered the large store, and separated from the little human cluster in a few moments, apparently oblivious or uncaring about the dull light at the other end of the store.
They instead, headed towards the back of the building and disappeared into the stock room beyond the double swinging doors, well out of sight of the human group.
"Are they with you?" A voice rang out in the darkness.
Startled, the group jumped to a halt and glanced about. Peering through the darkness into the hazy light, Cassandra's eyes adjusted.
She could see the outlines of several people and as her eyes soaked in the light, from several flashlights strapped to decorative planted trees around a small camp area in one corner of the building, she counted three men and two women, all obviously well equipped, staring past the new arrivals towards the spot where the aliens had disappeared towards the back of the store.
"I guess you could say that," Lewis answered with the best possible answer for that particular question.
"Ok then," a man said as he stepped forward, lowering his weapon slightly and reaching a rough, dirty half-gloved hand out to shake Lewis's hand.
"John. Welcome to the party. You guys look terrible. Want some soup?"
Cassandra shifted around to glance at John and his group. They seemed terrible too, she thought, each one obviously having been injured at some point, but she was certain she looked far worse.
"That looks bad," John stated obviously, indicating her thigh with the tip of his gun.
"Really? I hadn't noticed," Cassandra snapped unimpressed
"Right, well let's get you all taken care of," John smiled and turned towards the rest of the group.
They made their way over to the small camp and as soup was passed around and introductions were made, wounds were tended to.
Cassandra listened quietly as most of the group told tales of their struggles and their encounters with the bugs and the aliens that hunted them. Once again all were drawn into a debate over why the aliens had even showed up on the planet.
Cassandra could not imagine why they were here, but she, like several others in the new group, were at least grateful they were.
John did seem to be one of those, although he grunted his thoughts about the aliens and somehow managed to place the blame for all mankind's suffering on the 'fuck faced creatures' as he called them.
Her eyes flickered towards the back of the building where the warriors had disappeared. She could not see them, nor hear them.
If the aliens were even still in the building, they were completely silent. She could not hear the slightest hint of sound from the small alien party as she kept her eyes focused towards the back.
Lewis prodded her gently and waved his hand in front of her eyes, smiling at her as he finally got her attention back.
"You ok? How's that leg?"
"I'm fine," Cassandra responded with a slight smile.
She turned back to face Lewis as he gently placed his hand on her injured thigh and inspected her wound. Eventually, she and the others fell asleep.
When Cassandra finally awoke, almost an entire day had passed. She felt slightly more refreshed as she pulled herself upright and stretched her arms out wide. Carlos was almost immediately tending to her injuries the second she woke up.
"I need to change your bandages, but you looked so peaceful, I didn't want to wake you." He said softly as he began to change the wrap over her arm.
"Thanks, I appreciate that."
"How do you feel?" Lewis asked as he came over.
"I feel like I slept on a floor for a whole day."
"You did." He smiled. "Hungry?"
Her eyes nearly lit up. Lewis had in his hand something she had only halfway remembered the look and taste of. It was true food. Surviving on non-perishables and granola bars for so long made the sandwich in Lewis' hand look like a massive hoagie.
Cassandra shot him a curious look, as though she was dreaming and the food would suddenly vanish. He explained that the group had found a rather large supply of nutritional health foods that were vacuum sealed and dehydrated.
Cassandra happily sunk her teeth in the white meat chicken sandwich. The sandwich disappeared all too quickly, but it had tasted so good Cassandra did at least savor every bite and the taste lingered in her mouth.
With her belly full and her wounds cleaned and bandaged, she took to talking with the new group for quite a while.
As Cassandra chatted amongst the women in the small group, she listened to their tales of survival. Cassandra thought they were all strong and brave, and they thought the same about her, although she did not feel such words were justified for her.
As evening fell, Lewis found Cassandra off by herself towards the back of the building. She had gone through the stock room looking for the alien hunters, but she did not see them.
She stuck her head out of the back door near the loading dock and scanned the parking area behind the building but saw nothing.
"You shouldn't be wandering off," A voice from behind told her.
She jumped around and faced John, staring at her as though she was a piece of juicy meat. She immediately retracted from him, out of arms' reach.
"I'm fine. I needed some privacy," she said firmly. "I'll be back out in a bit."
John smiled charmingly. Cassandra couldn't tell if he was being friendly or creepy, but either way, she did not want him around her.
"Well, it isn't safe to be off on your own. Come back to the group soon. We'll keep you safe little girl."
She locked her jaws. Her nostrils flared a bit as a flash of anger welled up inside her at his words.
He smiled and walked away and Cassandra turned back to the open door and scanned the parking lot once again, muttering to herself under her breath.
When she decided that the aliens were simply not within her sight, she turned around and scanned the strewn empty boxes all around her.
She perused through the boxes looking for any scraps of useful supplies that might remain. She walked down a short hallway, into a break room and searched the already well turned-up cabinets for any food that might have been missed, headed back out of the break room and continued down the corridor to another stock room.
She scanned over the shelves and quietly looked around, listening for anyone nearby and looking for anything or anyone.
When she was sure the room was clear, she entered and continued searching through boxes.
She opened one box that contained fresh clothes just her size and quickly glanced around to make sure no one was near as she removed her pants and shirts.
She took a moment to clean her body with one t-shirt and a small amount of bottled water. As she quietly rubbed her skin clean, she breathed deeply. It was the closest thing to a shower she could expect anymore, but the room temperature water still felt wonderful against her skin as she rubbed her body and legs clean.
She pulled on a new pair of jeans and zipped the zipper. She strapped on her bra and suddenly her attention was turned towards the corner of the room. She wasn't even sure she heard anything, but she thought there was a vague soft ticking sound.
She held her breath and listened closely, peering around the boxes haphazardly strewn into the corner of the room.
She could feel her nerves tingle her body and her heart began to pound, but as she released her breath slowly, she tried to convince herself quickly that there was nothing and no one about.
She slowly shook her head and turned her shoulders, eyeing the ground for the shirts she was about to put on when a flicker of blue lightening startled her.
Jumping back wildly, Cassandra gasped audibly and toppled flat on her back, against the strewn boxes as she looked up in shocked wild fear. Her eyes locked on the alien barely an arm's length in front her.
He stood there staring at her, the grey skinned warrior leader. He was tall and mighty, ferocious and powerful. He had his head tipped slightly and his four mandibles flared threateningly as he glared at her with his burning golden eyes. His bladed spear was clutched tightly in his hand, pointed directly towards Cassandra as he gurgled a definite growl at her.
He shifted his footing and raised his spear higher as he simultaneously lunged for her. Cassandra swallowed and raised her arms around her head, helpless at the giant warrior's feet.
She eyed him through her arms and watched him heave his spear forward as he leaned closer to her.
In that moment, she regretted pressing herself into the aliens' personal space. Though she did not believe that the alien warriors were interested in killing humans that had not been infected with the breeding bug embryo, she was certain the leader was about to kill her.
In the space of a fraction of a second, her heart jumped so fully into her throat that she could barely breathe or move or even think to defend herself.
She was half naked and her weapon was not even within reach and the leader, who had apparently silently stalked her, moved far too quickly and powerfully.
She could not produce a sound, not even a squeal or hint of a yelp of fright as the leader grabbed her up with one hand and released his spear with a hard slam at the same time.
The leader had yanked Cassandra off the floor with tremendous force. He grabbed her arm as she cowered at his feet, and pulled her up and lobbed her behind him.
He growled as he pulled her around him so quickly she felt like she could get whiplash from the sudden movement. She lost her balance again and slammed to the ground behind the leader.
She heard the blade of the weapon slam down hard, striking into the floor somewhere between the boxes in the opposite corner. She heard a familiar crunch that she knew all too well as the sound of crushing bone, followed immediately by a stench and sizzle that was an all too familiar experience.
Cassandra fought to get her breathing under control and pressed her hands on her chest as though to manually force her heart back under her ribs as she looked around and tried to process what had just happened.
Growling, the leader reached towards his weapon and retrieved it, shaking some boxes loose in the process.
Cassandra's eyes drifted towards the spear and followed the shaft down to its contact point. Her jaw dropped as she saw a punctured corpse of a face hugger sizzling away, its acid blood melting the floor under it.
With wide, grateful, but still slightly panicked eyes, Cassandra watched the leader as he pulled the weapon loose from its kill.
He pressed a panel on the weapon and it slid back into its storage state before he placed it back in its holder on his back and whipped around to face her, mandibles pressed tightly closed, but he was still growling softly.
Cassandra felt her eyes follow the leader's every movement. She could smell the musk of his body as he watched her. Time seemed to freeze as she crouched at his feet, shaking with surprise. Without a word or further sound, the leader stalked away.
Still trying to control her heart, Cassandra watched him turn to leave. Without further rational thought, Cassandra reacted. She jumped to her feet and reached towards the leader, grabbing his arm firmly, just above his elbow on his left arm.
"Wait, please." She said softly to him.
He turned sharply onto her and Cassandra gasped. She leaned slightly away but she did not release her grip on his arm.
She held her breath and fell into silence as the leader eyed her while she stared up at him. He did not move and for an entirely too long and awkward moment, neither did Cassandra.
Cassandra tried to find words, but couldn't.
She stared at the leader in silence for a moment longer before he gurgled a raspy sound and reached for her hand with his other palm. Instead of ripping his arm free of her grip, which he could easily have done, as her small hand barely reached halfway around the bottom of his bicep, he pried her hand free delicately with his other hand.
The action was so surprising, it snapped Cassandra back into the moment and before the leader could turn away one more time, she finally spoke.
"Please. What… what are you? Why are you here? Do you have a name?"
The leader did not seem interested in having a conversation. He glanced at her considerately but turned and stalked away.
Without hesitation, Casandra followed him, trying again to get a response from him. He headed directly for the rear exit door and Cassandra noticed how the leader glanced around his surroundings readily as he entered the main stock room before he proceeded out the back door.
"I know you have a name. I know you can speak. I'm Cassandra. Please, what is your name?"
She continued to try as the giant alien, easily two feet taller than she that probably weighed three times as much, continued coolly out the rear door into the sunshine of the spring afternoon.
He glanced to her one more time, stretching his upper mandibles slightly apart as he eyed her and pulled his helmet free from its secured position on his back armor.
If Cassandra had to guess, she immediately got the impression that he was smiling at her.
If he was amused by her persistence or offering little more than an annoyed grin, she could not be sure, but she definitely had the distinct impression that she was making headway with him.
"R'chnt." The alien grumbled with his deep, resonating voice.
"What?" Cassandra whispered in surprise.
"Cassy?" A voice called from inside the building suddenly, distracting her. She jumped around and glanced into the building.
Lewis stared at her warily, gun clenched tight in his grip as he eyed the room around him.
"What's going on? Are you all right?"
"Yea, I'm fine…" she muttered, half in shock. She glanced back to where the leader had been, but he was gone. She eyed around the area and checked the wall of the building, but she could not see him.
"Cassy? What's…. where's your shirt?"
"Oh! Oh…" Cassandra stammered as she glanced down, only now realizing she was still not fully dressed. She pulled herself together and brushed past Lewis as she headed back into the stock room to grab her clothes.
"Nothing. It's fine. Everything's fine." She assured Lewis.
She quickly put her clothes on and grabbed up her belongings before returning to the rest of the human group with Lewis, her thoughts running wild about what had just transpired.
She tried to slow her heart and her mind down for the entire rest of the afternoon. She took to her guard shift and used most of it to search less for more bugs and more for the hunters and R'chnt.
She did not readily see them, but a few noises and flickers of light did tell her where they had made camp as evening set in.
As she had been doing for weeks, Cassandra slipped away from the rest of her group unnoticed sometime in the middle of the night. She made her way slowly, cautiously towards the group of alien hunters, quietly glancing about to see if she had been noticed by any humans as well as any of the aliens.
She did not see anyone of either species as she rounded a corner of a building and disappeared from visual range of the human group completely, slowly headed towards a park a few blocks away where the alien group made camp.
The alien warriors came into view, a few resting near a hazy blueish white fire, while several others were just barely visible through the distance and cloak of night, obviously keeping watch on their surroundings.
Cassandra allowed herself for a fraction of a second to absorb just how much alike the two species appeared to be.
Both groups had a hierarchy, although humans by nature were more open to a democratic arrangement, whereas there was no question who the alien's leader was and at no point did he ever seem open to suggestion.
Both groups split their forces, some keeping alert guard while others rested. Perhaps both were vaguely curious about the other, although neither party seemed too keen on approaching that subject, except for herself, she imagined.
She glanced around looking R'chnt. She had to find him.
She wanted to know more about him, she wanted answers. She was not sure if her questions would get answered, her curiosity get fulfilled, or she would get herself killed for pushing the limits of his tolerance too far, but she needed to know in any case.
He had saved her life and stalked away like nothing had happened. His display proved one thing that she had been certain of since the first time she saw the alien arrivals.
Her mind skipped ahead faster than she could follow her own thoughts.
She was certain now beyond any shadow of a doubt that the alien warriors were not there to kill humans that had not been infected. They were there solely to stop the spread of the bugs. She had never been able to figure exactly why the aliens suddenly showed up.
No one knew exactly, but everyone had theories.
The most commonly accepted theory was not that the alien warriors were just intergalactic doo-gooders, but instead, that they were responsible somehow for the infestation and were paying up.
She could not perceive how that theory could be true, but it seemed like there was no other explanation for their presence, unless they had simply decided to come to Earth to have a little fun.
She shook her head, pushing away that thought, too. The warriors, including R'chnt, were getting injured, torn up, and fighting endlessly in battles. They had lost their own, and she could not possibly imagine how anyone would think it would be fun.
She glanced around the rest of the alien group and did not see R'chnt. She tiptoed warily around their camp, circling part of the perimeter in perhaps the smallest distance she had yet dared to approach the aliens.
She did not him, but she heard a clicking sound from somewhere above her head. Cassandra looked up and thought she saw ripples in the black night against the building to her right. The ripples were moving; a clicking filled her ears.
She realized in a moment, that she was looking at the cloaked body of a warrior through a ripped off doorway to the fire escape from the third floor of the building.
She started up the stairs, after the cloaked alien. She did not even know which alien it was that she had spotted, or if she had been seen either. She climbed the fire escape and poked her head through the door, holding her breath while she looked around.
She saw and heard nothing, so she tiptoed forward, through one room of the old, brick office complex, and peered through one more door that was jarred awkwardly open.
She spotted the leader.
He was sitting in a hollowed out hole in the exterior wall of a back room that was piled high with file boxes. The leader had his back turned to the door and if he did hear or notice that Cassandra had entered the room, he did not respond.
She swallowed softly and pushed the door open cautiously, eyeing the back of the leader's head warily. She took a ragged breath and kept her eyes locked on the alien's back, noticing his long gray locks and gold and shimmering adornments in them, the metal armor on his back, a sealed over injury on his lower right side, and the intricate details carved into the three leather belts he wore.
She slipped into the room and held still and quiet behind a pile of boxes, watching the alien commander stare out into the rainy night.
For a moment, no one moved. Cassandra held her ground and the leader of the alien warrior party did not seem to even notice her presence.
She finally put a foot forward and approached the leader. He turned his head just enough to watch her out of the corner of his eye.
She took a deep breath and paused again, uncertain of what the massive, muscular alien might do next.
He spread the top two mandibles on his jaw apart, pressed them back together, and turned his head back towards the darkness outside the hole, making a soft clicking sound.
Cassandra was not sure of the implication of his reaction, but she walked towards him several more feet with slightly more confidence.
"Hi there..." she muttered softly.
"Ummm…oh boy. I uh…." She stammered…
"I'm Cassy. You can call me Cassy."
Suddenly all the questions she had raging inside her, everything she desired to know, each sentence she had preplanned of exactly how the following conversation would go dissolved away and she could no longer find words.
She stared at the profile the maskless alien and watched him with wide, curious, and frightened eyes, but she could not think of anything else to say to him. He did not respond to her, he did not even glance at her upon hearing her speak.
She pursed her lips and tried hard to think of something else to say. Slowly, she began to consider something else that until now had not crossed her mind.
The alien probably did not understand her.
The odd throaty noises she had heard him make, which she figured must have been his language, were so far from intelligible they were almost indistinguishable from that of a human trying to clear his throat. To him however, and to those that he commanded, the leader's odd noises were totally understandable.
Whatever limited communication the humans had with the aliens and their leader was mostly consistent of body language and hand signals.
The closest thing to a language he warriors had shared with the humans consisted of sharp, unquestionable, warning growls if they got too close. Cassandra found herself wondering if her words to him sounded equally as strange as his alien language did to her.
She sighed and crouched down, barely a half dozen feet from the sitting alien.
"Do you understand me?" She asked of him in a quiet voice.
He glanced at her this time, but the look he gave her appeared to be of more annoyance than understanding. Still, the alien said and did nothing.
"I just..." Cassandra started. "I just want to know who you are. Why are you here?"
She continued on, talking as if she was with an old friend.
"There's been so much changed on this planet, you know. It wasn't always like this. There's people out there right now who think this is all your fault. I don't know what to believe.
I don't understand why you are here. We... humans...we never really knew if life out there existed, but now we know it does, and the timing of it all is just one more hit to mankind, right? Well, I for one am glad for it.
I don't know who you are or why you're here, but I am glad. You saved my life... I'm glad you did. Thank you. I didn't have the chance to thank you earlier… for that."
She paused and pressed her lips together. She glanced out of the hole in the wall that the alien still stared through.
Beyond the gentle falling rain drops, she could see the glow of distant alien ships hovering far above the planet, safely away from the infestation.
She watched the fuzzy outlines of the vessels float motionlessly in the sky before she glanced back to the alien leader. His head had turned and he seemed to be watching her, perhaps curiously this time, Cassandra thought.
He extended his hand and reached for the rifle that was slung over her shoulder. Cassandra felt her heart skip several beats.
She held her breath and tried not to shiver as the alien's giant palm reached for her weapon. He clutched the shaft of the gun and pulled it gently towards himself. Cassandra allowed the strap to unravel itself from her shoulder, eyes locked on the alien.
He glanced at the weapon, inspecting it, it appeared. He pointed it out to the outside, looked along the shaft and considered the weapon for a moment. She was certain, certain she saw him shake his head softly as though he did not approve of the weapon.
He paused for a moment and he thrust the weapon back to her and reached his other hand off to his side. He turned to her and offered her his own alien handheld caster weapon.
She frowned, then smiled and reached her hand forward to take the weapon. She did not understand the alien, or the technology behind the weapon he gave her, but she was grateful for the gift. With a wide smile and definite disbelief, she thanked him.
The aliens' weapons were far more powerful than anything mankind had produced. The sleek, slightly football shaped weapon was almost perfectly tailored to killing the bug drones.
Cassandra eyed the weapon thoughtfully. R'chnt quietly watched her handle the weapon and somehow she felt her grace with the weapon was being judged.
She fumbled with the alien rifle clumsily as she shifted in her grip until it settled into her lap.
Her eyes drifted away from the weapon and back towards the leader of the alien pack. She watched him watch her for a moment before her eyes dropped down, tracing his body.
The large wound on his ribcage that he had received during the battle several days earlier, which she had thought was healed, did not looked as well healed as she had once thought from a close up view.
The deep scratches in the leader's gray skin were clearly visible. The injuries were bubbled up over the top of his skin, and had turned a dark, smoky grey color. It looked almost as though some sort of molten material had been poured into his wounds to seal them, rather than allow them to heal on their own.
She scanned down to the alien's thigh, which had also been badly wounded during battle. Those injuries appeared to have been cauterized in the same fashion.
Suddenly, she felt her own injuries ache as she looked at the scars and ancient wounds on the leader's body. Her eyes scanned silently across the alien's body, from one thigh to the other and back up to his chest where something caught her attention.
The armor he wore over his shoulders did not cover his entire chest. Rather it left most of muscular body exposed to enemy attack, or curious eyes.
Draped over the armor, and around the leader's neck were several decorative necklaces of varying lengths. In the center of one of the chains, Cassandra saw a very familiar looking and most unusual pendant.
It was a dog tag, Cassandra was certain of it. Lewis wore them as well. She glanced at it and frowned curiously at the leader, and without thinking she reached forward and grasped the worn looking tag. The leader growled at her as she pulled near, and shaken, Cassandra released her grip on the leader's necklace and retreated.
"What is going on? What are you?" She asked, staring the alien directly in the eye.
"Please, I think you know a lot more than you want to share. That's very old," she said eyeing the dog tag, which she could tell was not collected in the recent weeks.
"You've been here before?"
Silence was her response, but the alien did reach towards the weapon he had just given her. Her first reaction was to pull the powerful weapon closer to her, but she stopped quickly as the leader placed his palm on the rifle in her lap.
Slowly, he pulled himself off the floor and began to rise. Cassandra stayed crouched where she was and watched the leader with a frown. A moment before he released his touch on the weapon he had given her, he spoke and Cassandra nearly toppled over with shock.
"You will live," he said simply, clearly, and unquestionable in almost perfect English.
Her jaw dropped and she gaped at him as he stood, turned, and started out the door. Slowly she rose to her feet and kept her eyes locked on his retreating body.
"Wait," she called in a hushed whisper.
The leader stopped, spun halfway to her and watched her as he gently caressed the pendants that dangled around his neck. Cassandra glanced at the weapon and tipped her head to the leader.
She wanted to say more, but there was nothing else that could come to her mind, so she remained awkwardly silent. The leader nodded delicately to her, raised his chin again and disappeared outside the door.
Cassandra looked back down at the weapon in her arms and turned to stare out of the gaping hole in the wall once more. She tucked the alien rifle inconspicuously behind her shirt and eyed the alien vessels again and watched the rain drizzle down well into the morning light.
Lewis appeared in the doorway just as the sky had turned a wide range of orange hues. The lights from the alien vessels disappeared against the early morning sun that filled the red sky.
Rain still drizzled down and Cassandra could see the alien troops gathering around their leader. She watched them prepare to head out to continue their extermination process.
There was a part of her that wanted to join the alien pack once more, but another part of her was so tired from their ordeals that it simply wanted to curl up in a warm dark place and not come out until the alien warriors had finished what they started.
Cassandra wondered for a moment as Lewis approached her, what exactly it was that the aliens had started.
She decided then, that when he returned once more, she would find the leader and ask him of it. She knew he could speak English. She knew he had been to Earth before. She knew he understood her. She had to know what else he knew.
"Are you OK?" Lewis asked as he placed a hand on her shoulder.
She halfway turned to him, but kept her eye on the alien group that was roused and ready for battle. His eyes drifted up to follow hers and the two watched quietly the alien group until they headed out of site.
"Cassy, don't disappear like that. No one knew where you were all night. Are you crazy? Come on. Let's get back to the group."
Cassandra said very little as her mind drifted through an array of thoughts about all that had taken place up through the last night. Lewis talked to her, but his words flitted through her mind in a haze and she did not hear him until he jabbed her on the shoulder to get her attention once more.
Three days later, the alien hunting party returned and when Cassandra overheard someone else call out that they were back, she found herself lighting up with happiness. Smiling widely and curiously, she waited merely minutes after the hunters were confirmed back before she crept away to find R'chnt again.
She found the weary and ragged looking alien party limping their way back to their holdout. Seven hunters had left with R'chnt, but now, twelve had returned. Obviously they had picked up a few stragglers while they were out, Cassandra confirmed.
She did not try to hide her approach to the group this time. The aliens sat and hovered over their own wounds. Utilizing odd alien medical kits, they began to sear their gaping injuries closed.
Each of the fighters seemed tense and agitated but also worn and weary. She watched the aliens warily, but slowly and steadily stalked towards them, eyeing their many injuries as the group came to a rest to tend to their wounds, drink, and eat before her eyes set on R'chnt.
His abdomen was shredded again. Cassandra noticed that R'chnt's ridged head was bleeding and missing a chunk of skin and tissue. The helmet he cradled in his arm was cracked in half. He glanced at it for a moment and tossed it to the ground. The force of his angry throw split the thing into two pieces.
"R'chnt-de na'tu di-oomandi h'ptu." One warrior a few dozen feet away said as Cassandra approached and all heads turned in her direction, including R'chnt's.
Cassandra had no idea what was just said, but she definitely heard R'chnt's name and something that sounded quite a bit like the word human.
One of the newcomer warriors growled something in response and R'chnt raised a hand, clearly to quiet him.
"Ni'hep K'Shai." R'chnt said and it aroused a bit of a chuckle from a few of the familiar warriors.
She smiled and held her ground, curiously watching the wary alien warriors as R'chnt made his way to her. She could not help but feel as though the alien that had spoken had called her his human.
She wasn't sure what R'chnt's response meant, but Cassandra pursed her lips together in something of an embarrassed smile, definitely getting the idea that she was at the brunt of their jesting. She lowered her eyes as he approached her.
He rounded on her, and she held her ground.
R'chnt extended an arm out towards her and Cassandra followed his gesture, which obviously was indicating for her to walk with him. They headed off only a short distance away from both groups, in silence.
R'chnt sat on the ground some distance away and tended to his own injuries without a word, only pain filled groans as he sealed his own skin with a cauterizing substance that clearly caused pain probably equal to the injuries themselves.
Cassandra grimaced watching him heal his wounds. She did not know what to say or do, so she remained silent and crouched next to him to sit.
She glanced off in the distance and noticed a blazing orange glow of a fire burning far away. She pressed her lips together and swallowed, crouched next to the giant alien Leader, and as though invited to do so, she placed her hand on his shoulder.
She wondered for a moment if he could feel her body shaking through the armor he wore that her hand clasped.
The leader turned to her and stared at her quietly. She did not see the look in his eye that she had expected to. Then again, she thought, his eyes were so alien, she was not sure she could correctly interpret any look from them.
Still, she had expected to see sorrow, defeat, weakness, any other hint of emotion conveyed in those deep golden eyes that would tell her the answers to her questions without asking.
Instead, she saw anger, rage; something of a burning look in his eye that seemed to be fueled by a desire to completely eradicate the drones from the planet's surface.
Cassandra looked into his eyes and saw an entire history behind his deep amber irises. She found many answers there in that uncountable amount of time she stared at him.
She saw the hatred the Leader possessed for the bug drones and their sinister queens. She saw fury and the strength of his spirit and the fire in his heart, and perhaps a slight bit of remorse after all.
She caught that look in his eyes for a flicker of a moment as he shifted his focus across her body. She swallowed and pulled her hand off his shoulder. The truth was in his stare, and it absorbed into her on an empathic level she could not even describe to herself.
She lowered her eyes, glancing at the filled in wounds across the leader's abdomen quickly before staring at the floor between their two bodies.
She did not look at him, and she could perceive that his glare had been cast off towards the distant fire as well. She tried to find words; anything to say to him.
He was silent; her heart was racing.
She wondered for a moment if he could see, hear, or feel her heart pounding. The awkward silence was almost too much to bear.
He may possibly have been content to sit in silence staring at the fire burning in the distance, but Cassandra needed to talk to him, about anything; just to fill the void.
"So your name is R'chnt?" She questioned. He watched her but said nothing in return.
She repeated the name again with a slight head nod and smiled, confirming to herself that it was his name while he watched her curiously. She glanced towards him and smiled widely.
"That's a beautiful name. Beautiful, really. Easy to pronounce. " She smiled foolishly, "I was just expecting something...more difficult to say," she continued on, carrying on a one way conversation.
She lowered her eyes, smiling embarrassedly to herself.
"Something like M'de-h'tljke S'aryn ct'lk R'chnt?" He questioned smoothly.
Cassandra stared blankly at him, trying to discern if what he uttered was actually words at all, then smiled and giggled.
"Yea, something like that."
Clearing her throat, she began to stammer to try to find the words she was looking for.
"So, what exactly does K'Shai mean?"
He glanced to her and pulled his upper mandibles apart widely, exposing the two sharp teeth on his upper gum. He was smiling, she knew it, and although she did not know why or what was funny about her question, she still pursed her lips into a thin smile.
He pointed at her and called her K'Shai again.
"I see," she said, understanding that perhaps it was name for her. She liked the sound of it and repeated it with a pleased grin.
"Help me understand who you are," she whispered softly to him.