Author's Note: Well the most recent chapter hasn't been up for even ten minutes and I'm already writing this. As always thanks for the overwhelmingly (and surprisingly) positive response already.
Yeythwei stabbed down, the combispear parting the hard chitin as though it were mercury, the metal designed to cope with the creature's acidic blood. The praetorian didn't make a sound, unconscious as it was. Pulling the spear out he saw he'd missed the heart by a few mere inches. He stabbed down again.
The blow never connected as something impacted against the plates of his armour hard enough to knock him back as step, looking up he saw the ooman holding one it's species' primitive projectile weapons. Snarling he lifted the combispear, preparing to throw it straight through him. He didn't get the chance as the human emptied the rest of the clip into him, not all of it hit his armour. There was a click as the human tried to reload but dropped the clip twice before it managed to push it home.
He could probably kill the human but not before it shot him again and then he would likely be too injured to escape the khainde amedha when they followed his trail.
Spitting and snarling he ran into the night. The defeat grating on his pride. There would be a reckoning for this, he'd make sure of it.
Alec awkwardly reholstered the gun. Still mildly winded he struggled to his feet and surveyed his surroundings. Faceless was dead, and unfortunately he'd landed on one of the repulsors which was probably completely dissolved by now. It wasn't a complete loss, he had managed to retrieve the broken remnants of the alien's energy weapon
Sighing he turned the other repulsors on and went to leave, only to stop at a soft hiss behind him. Turning with trepidation he was relieved to see a complete lack of avenging xenomorphs, instead his eyes fell upon the mortally wounded Chrome. The praetorian was losing a lot of blood and would be dead soon. Except... but no, down that route lay death, except he owed his life to it. Could he really leave the creature to die when he had the power to save it? Alec mulled upon this for a moment before coming to a conclusion.
Knowing he'd regret it he only just managed to lift the praetorian, careful to make sure the blood didn't touch him. It was going to be a long walk home and Chrome would be lucky to survive that long. But somehow, despite all logic saying he should leave it to die and that put in similar circumstance the xenomorph wouldn't hesitate to kill him, Alec knew he was doing the right thing. A life for a life.
He hoped he'd live to regret it.
Deep within the hive the Queen raged. Two praetorians dead and the yautja was still alive. Still it was wounded, and it would pay. Her angered screams echoing through the cave system, she dispatched Haudmisericordia – the oldest and most efficient killer amongst the praetorians, older even than her in fact – to track the predator down. It would be lucky to see it's next sunrise.
Piusnex woke. Everything hurt and she couldn't move. Snarling she tried to lash out with her tail only to find that bound as well. The human was here, she could smell him, his scent thick upon the air, this had to be it's lair. Locating it easily she found it was making quiet noises like so many of it's kind did. She wondered what it meant. The human walked over to one of it's machines. The electroreceptors in the front of her head were going crazy with the number of machines surrounding her. In fact every sense seemed almost in overload, one of the machines for example was making an irritating beep every few seconds. Then another xenomorph spoke in the darkness.
"Injure. Death. Praetorian. Alive. Human." It didn't make sense, and if another of her kind was so close why didn't it kill the human?
"Who are you? I can't locate you?" She snarled out into the darkness. There was a long pause while the human noisily typed away at one of it's machines.
"Weapon. Severely injured. Kept alive for implanting a young one." If xenomorphs had foreheads hers would have wrinkled in confusion.
"What is the human going to do?" Nothing at all except the human making noises to itself. Whoever it was they had abandoned her, she could only hope they would report back to the hive. She struggled weakly as the human got up from it's chair, it walked over to her and placed something on her wound before binding it in place. She screamed in agony as whatever it was made it feel like the wound had been set aflame. She could do nothing as the human continued it's torture.
Author's Note: And that's a wrap, it's shorter than I'd like but then again nearly all chapters are.