Author's Note: As promised this chapter will have Pvt. Hunter's POV, hopefully by the time I've got round to his I will actually have given him a first name. Now here's the chapter, presumably you want to know what was with the gunfire in the last chapter.
Alec sobbed softly, hands soaking in the iodine. A faint trickle of blood was pouring out of his mouth where he'd bitten through his lip to avoid screaming. Noone would actually have heard him but it was a pride thing.
On the table behind him the fruits of his labour lay weak and unconscious. Chrome was in a bad way, despite the surgery Alec had performed.
The bullet had managed to slice nick the xenomorph equivalent of the aorta, as well as puncture a lung and leave an exit wound the width of two fingers. Diagnosis, major internal bleeding, major blood loss and respiratory difficulties.
Sadly although some plastic were acid resistant, rubber and latex gloves weren't, at least not to the level required, which could be a problem when he needed to perform what was just one step down from open heart surgery.
Still Chrome was safely tranqued into oblivion so whether she made it through or not at least she wasn't going to be in pain.
The gloves had lasted all of ten minutes, and by that time there were some rather vicious looking acid burns on his wrists and forearms. The first he knew of the gloves failure was when the acid poured into a fingertip, he yanked his hand back, ripping off the gloves and dunking them in a pre-prepared bucket of weak alkali solution, watching as the Ph turned in seconds from vaguely blue to yellow. He then washed his hands in water to be sure the acid was dealt with before putting on another half-a-box of surgical gloves on.
He'd managed to open up the armour plate on the chest before his scalpel had dissolved, and he'd located the nicked artery, which was the most immediate danger.
Now he managed to sew it shut, only for the stitching to dissolve. It was beginning to look pretty desperate for Chrome. He needed something he could use instead of stitching, an idea struck.
It's said that most good ideas are one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, this one was one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent pure insanity. Some window sealants contained a polyalkene chain with acid resistance, it was crazy but if he could pack it around the wound it might just work. Admittedly even it would dissolve in within a day but with the praetorian's superior cell regeneration the wound would likely have closed by then.
About an hour, and second degree chemical burns, later Chrome was at least in a stable condition and Alec was binding his hands. The exit wound had been patched over with a thick sheet of metal, it would corrode in time but the chitinous armour would be the first to heal.
As he refrained from sobbing as the iodine stung the wounds clean, his mind turning to the other guest in his abode. There would be a reckoning, of sorts.
Piusnex woke groggily, parts of her she hadn't even known could hurt were hurting, her chest felt tight, constricted somehow, she couldn't fill her lungs properly and to top it all she had a splitting headache.
"Human?" She hissed weakly, her headache so bad that the mere thought of any noise as high pitched as echo-locating was painful. "Are you there human?"
Nothing, not even the faintest footfall, but his smell was still strong, he'd been here less than an hour ago. It was odd, before he'd captured her... no. She thought. That was wrong. He'd rescued her, not captured, she was only alive now because he had, unexplainably, saved her life.
Still this was annoying, she'd almost been healed from the predator's attack and now it would take ages to heal the new wound. A mere bullet wound was quite minor but the collapsed lung, and she could tell just from the pain of breathing that a lung had collapsed, would take a while longer.
She was almost glad, she would get to spend another couple of weeks safe with her human. But then what, she wondered, she would heal in time and there would come a time when the human would have no reason to confine her anymore. What if he refused to let her go? Would she be forced to kill him? Could she kill him? Did she even want to leave? She wasn't sure anymore.
With little else in the way of options she waited for her human to return.
Yeythwei followed the praetorian, curiosity overpowering his earlier decision to wait out the hive war in his ship.
The praetorian had been carefully quartering the area, a search method the yautja was familiar with, when it had veered off towards the ooman's lair. Despite himself Yeythwei was amused, he'd seen the fortifications the ooman had done and there was no way a single praetorian would be able to get in. In fact the only way the predator could see khainde amedha defeating the ooman's fortress would be to lay siege to it and starve him out.
Still the praetorian made an effort to get in, tail lightly scratching the thick metal sheets that covered the door, while an attempt at shoulder barging the door in failed to dent or move it. The praetorian gave up and went back to searching.
Yeythwei wondered why the khainde amedha had been drawn there, what had it been looking for? What was a lone praetorian doing this deep in it's enemy's territory? Things just kept getting stranger and stranger.
With no answers forthcoming the yautja returned to it's ship.
Private Nicholas Hunter scowled as he browsed the supermarket shelves. Sergeant Renalds had managed to break his arm just a couple of days ago so he was doing the supply run solo, it was annoying but there wasn't much he could do about it.
So far there hadn't been much worth having, out of three supermarkets only this one wasn't completely ransacked, and even this one only had a couple of shelves of canned goods left, the rest of the food was way past being edible. And worse still most of it was spam
Sighing he began loading the cans into his backpack, the military issue version was a lot larger than the typical rucksack, in fact the only backpacks he'd seen larger were specific to camping shops.
There was a faint click of claws on plastic to his right, he turned, bringing his gun up automatically but the bug was already in mid jump, he was as good as dead.
There was a loud retort behind him as the bullet managed to almost remove the creature's head. He looked behind him, the man was on one knee, rifle pressed against his shoulder and going from the evidence was clearly a crack shot, ex-special forces perhaps or private security.
Still there was something a bit... odd about his appearance. A greasy ponytail, a t-shirt with some kind of sci-fi slogan on it and cargo trousers, he looked more like a geek than ex-military, a fit geek who could use a rifle but still a geek.
"Follow me, quickly." His tone was urgent, his eyes focused on the dead xeno. Nick couldn't see the point, the thing was dead already.
He followed anyway, it had been ages since they'd found a new survivor. Nick didn't know it but it was standard practice in a life or death situation to simply follow the person who seems to know what they're doing.
The route the man took was extremely unpredictable, every time he heard so much as a hiss the man would go at right angles to the noise for about a hundred metres. Still they eventually made it to some sort of lab. A huge concrete monstrosity jutting out of the ground. That was when Nick's sense of danger first began giving off warning signs.
With the ease that comes of habit the other survivor removed a small grill on the outside, pushed rifle and backpack inside and squeezed in afterwards. Nick did likewise, replacing the grill with some mild difficulty. The vent was probably too small for any xeno to make it in but he'd learnt not to take risks, all of the survivors had.
They made it out of the vents into a large tiled room with a series of benches covered in gear, there was even what appeared to be an open box of handguns in one corner as well as a bunch of ammo boxes stacked against a wall. Nick smiled, it was looking like this supply run wasn't a complete waste of time after all, he'd been expecting some small house with little to no food but this place put the old boot camp they were sheltered in to shame.
"Put your stuff down whereever." The other survivor said, already halfway out the door.
Nick unslung his AK, dumping it alongside his backpack but kept his sidearm, caution a watchword after two years in this hellhole.
He found the survivor in what was either a living room or a study, he was waved into an armchair.
"Welcome to my humble abode," The survivor said smugly, "it's not much but it's home."
"Seems like a lot where I'm sitting." Nick stated flatly.
"Perhaps." The survivor said contemplatively, "Although, if you don't mind my asking, where have you been sitting?"
"Out in the countryside, there was a military complex on the edge of the city," Something of an exaggeration, the old boot camp had maybe five buildings, one of which was mostly tarpaulin, and was kept safe by a jury-rigged electric fence which remained one power spike away from failing. "We're holed up there."
"We? You mean you're not the only one?" The survivor almost yelled, Nick was forced to suppress a smile, Andrews had been like that when they'd found him, terrified that he was the last man alive. Well it wouldn't hurt to give the survivor further incentive to join them.
"Yeah there's five of us. Capt. Williams, Sgt. Renalds and two civvies, like yourself, and me of course."
"And you would be?" The survivor pressed, it was probably only simple curiosity but Nick was starting to get a little on edge from all the questions.
"Pvt. Hunter." Nick replied, emphasising the military title.
"So what brings you to the big city, so to speak?" The survivor asked, declining to introduce himself in turn. The sheer smugness of the guy really starting to grate on his nerves. Still he had to remain cordial.
"A supply run, we're running low on a few things." Nick explained.
"And they sent you on a supply run on your own?" The survivor demanded, apparently shocked.
"Yeah, you're on your own, what's the difference?" Nick demanded in turn, affronted at what was either a clever snub or possibly genuine concern, Nick couldn't be sure.
"I don't have a choice, and I've got the repulsors." It was a fair point if he were honest, and now Nick's curiosity was piqued.
"Repulsors?" He asked.
"I'll explain in the morning. For now, there's a spare bed in the east wing, the entire place is sealed off other than a couple of controlled exits so you're safe from xenomorphs and don't go into my lab until I've had a chance to explain things." The survivor said patiently.
But from the word 'lab' Nick hadn't been listening, he drew his sidearm from his hip. He'd had more than one close run in with Yutani's scientists.
"You from Yutani?" He demanded, sizing up the survivor once more. He'd never seen anyone quite so calm with a gun pointed at them.
The survivor laughed, "Nothing so sinister, I've got someone living there at the moment, they aren't good with people and I just want to explain your presence before I introduce you. Like I said, in the morning, ok?"
Nick grumbled his assent, not believing the weak excuse at all but too tired to question it at the moment before looking for this fabled 'east wing'.
Author's Note: I know I said I'd do a complete catch up but it's been over a months since I updated, sorry about that, all I can say in my defence is that exams play havoc with a writing schedule. Rest of POV to follow next chapter, unless you find Nick's POV too boring.
Also it's pretty safe to say that I won't be finishing the Christmas special this month, on the bright side even I can probably manage that one chapter by December.