Author's Note: And now for the Alien chapter of the upload extravaganza,
With a sigh Alec turned his rather archaic CD player off. Since wireless signals were essentially dead all across the planet he'd been unable to access any of his own music files from the data core. Fortunately one of the colonists had turned out to be something of a musical historian and while the old CDs hadn't been to his tastes at first, the centuries old records had grown on him.
Unfortunately he had been unable to play any today, which was annoying as he traditionally had made this day of the week his day off. The problem was Chrome, xenomorphs were very reliant on sound for spacial awareness so when he'd selected The Who's 'Won't get fooled again' the praetorian had thrashed and screeched like crazy. He hadn't realised the cause at that point which had led to Chrome nearly having a coronary at Green Day's rather louder and faster paced 'Basket Case'.
Which meant music was out, which meant relaxing was out. His day of relaxation killed before it even started Alec put the albums back on the shelf and took a step towards the computer when a case caught his eye.
Surely it was madness, but on the other hand some of the music was rather quiet and it was renowned for being melodic and rythmic so could prove enjoyable to listen to for even a xenomorph. Carefully he pulled it off the shelf, blowing off an inch thick layer of dust before making the mistake of breathing in.
After he'd recovered from his coughing fit Alec flipped open the case and put the CD in before turning the volume low, it would ruin a number of the pieces but hopefully would prove less of a disturbance to his patient.
Settling into a chair and leaning back casually Alec just soaked in the sounds as 'Beethoven: The Complete Collection' began to play throughout the compound. A beautiful day of doing absolutely nothing lay ahead.
Yeythwei cursed violently as he injected the antibiotics. It was his seventh injection within the hour having so far having had to inject a few ccs of platelet enriched blood around the wound to quickly stop the bleeding, three other types of antibiotics, one blood transfusion and a pain suppressant, the latter of which did not seem to be particularly effective.
With a herculean effort he got to his feet and managed to make it the few metres to his sleeping quarters.
It would take time for his injuries to heal, months probably, but there was no way the khainde amedha could get into his ship.
And then once his wounds were gone he would track down the human, gut it, and proceed to make it eat it's own liver. Another regret was that he had failed to collect the skulls of the other two praetorians he'd killed although the sheer size of the skull he had collected was a more than adequate compensation.
Mind afire with thoughts of glory and vengence Yeythwei settled down to sleep.
The Queen was at a loss to express herself, it was unusual for a xenomorph to feel sadness, loss or grief. This knowledge didn't help her though as she mourned the dead, two of her children robbed of their lives by the callous yautja race, an excess of twenty drones and to cap it all, in her lust for retribution, she had managed to get her most senior praetorian killed. That was what hurt the most, her sheer pride and arrogance had got her advisor and the closest thing a Queen could have to a friend, killed.
With no other way to express herself the Queen let out a shrill keening wail, trying to vent all her pain, her grief and her anger in a single primal cry.
But she couldn't mourn for long, down that road lay destruction for the hive, for the sake of the hive she would have to remain strong and aloof. Haudmisericordia may have been dead but the hive which he'd dedicated his life to, and eventually laid down said life for, would live on.
Piusnex howled and screamed as the loud disharmonious – to her at least – sound robbed her of all sense of direction.
The human rushed in babbling it's strange language. How could it live with that noise? And where was it standing? She couldn't locate anything, starting to panic she began to thrash in her bonds, reopening partially healed wounds. She felt a needle pierce her arm then the world simply began to fade away.
When she woke the noise was worse again, it was just so loud and fast, smothering all other sounds around it. She could barely express her gratitude when the human turned the disgusting device off. At least for the three seconds it took for the praetorian to remember who had turned the noise machine on in the first place.
To get over her disorientation she let out a few low pitch clicks, which bounced back, refamiliarising herself with the layout of the room.
Unfortunately it was just five minutes later that the infernal machine started up again except this time much quieter, the sound softer and rythmic and although it did interfere with here sense of surroundings somewhat Piusnex had to admit the sound was enjoyable to listen to. Perhaps the machine wasn't some sort of torture device after all, it was just possible that the human listened to this for enjoyment – though how it could enjoy the earlier noise she couldn't fathom.
The sound certainly took her mind off things, like her captivity and her inability to move for example. After a few hours of the sound she truly had developed an appreciation for it, sometimes it was loud and dramatic, at times soft and smooth but always ever changing and ever melodic. Feeling she had gained something of an insight into the human psyche Piusnex allowed the sound to slowly lull her into sleep.
Author's Note: I felt something of a gentler chapter was needed in this case as well as something both human and xenomorph might be able to relate to. Hope it wasn't too unbelievable.