Silence was deafening as the group hesitantly followed the two predators out of the sporting goods store, though the girl was impatient enough to tell the others to pick up the pace.
"Do you want to lose them? They're not going to wait for us."
"I think we should." The woman furiously whispered back. "You really think either one of them are going to save you should the time come?"
"Well with that attitude probably not. What are you, xenophobic?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're US Army right, shoot first and ask later?"
A'luet could almost see the look of disgust cross his mentor's face under the biomask. "I'm going to kill them, I swear."
He had been about to answer when P'sy's forearm hit him in the chest stopping him in his tracks. "What's-?"
"Shhhh!" P'sy hissed. Ahead something scattered leaves in the gloom. "Do you trust me?"
"Is that a real question?"
"Only asking because you might not condone my plan."
"Why?"
P'sy's helmet turned, pointed in the direction of the humans.
The clicks and purrs from their new allies were almost background noise to Jessie, oddly comforting to her for reasons she didn't know. So when the forest trail fell quiet she broke off her argument with Kelly and noticed the two hulking aliens staring at them.
"What's wrong?"
"Bait?" A'luet asked, not sure if his lack of concern meant he was an asshole. "You want to use them as bait?"
"They're loud enough and annoying, two very convenient characteristics for catching the attention of predators."
"Isn't that considered dishonorable?"
P'sy shrugged. "Collateral damage."
"Hello! What are you two chittering about over there?" The older woman had her hands on her hips.
"How I wish-" P'sy growled. "Just wish."
"Maybe just her be collateral?"
"If she wasn't pregnant maybe." P'sy punched a sequence into his gauntlet.
"You aren't going to fill them in?" A'luet gestured awkwardly towards the group.
In response camouflage spread across the older predator's body.
"What's the fun in that?"
A'luet found himself staring at nothing so he switched his helmet to infrared, P'sy heat signature lit up as he moved away from the group.
He gave a soft noise of amusement, sparing the humans one last look before activating his own camouflage.
"What the hell?" So the male teenager did speak. "Where did they go? Did they just fucking disappear into thin air? What the fuck Dallas."
"Just sit and wait." P'sy murmured evilly.
"This is really an asshole thing to do, P'sy."
The predator laughed. "Do you expect any less from me?"
"No."
The unmistakable stench of the facehuggers reached A'luet's nose, like an acidic sewer with too many half dissolved bodies.
"Be ready. They're close." P'sy intone in A'luet's ear.
The skittering grew louder as two facehuggers scrambled across the ground, ignorant to the predators' presence.
Someone gasped.
"Now."
P'sy stood up from his crouch, the invisible sheet covering his body disappearing as his caster rose and fired, obliterating one hugger. A'luet focused his caster as well but realized the second Kainde Amedha larva was missing.
Jessie squeaked and jumped back as the acidic blood from P'sy's victim she was inspecting popped a log like wood on fire.
Then he saw it.
The fiend was half way up the tree and sizing up the unsuspecting girl. He reached for a smart disk, making sure he had her attention while turning on his translator.
"Don't move."
"Don't what?" She asked confused.
Six legs twitched in anticipation, a tail swung in excitement. The facehugger launched itself, intent on her. In its greedy narrow view, it missed the smart disc nail it back onto the tree it hide in.
The humans' eyes were like saucers.
Then the man turned to them. "Did you just use us as bait?"
"You lived." P'sy passed by them to take a closer look at the dead facehugger.
"That isn't the point."
"What is it?" The female teenager asked timidly.
"Something you don't want attached to your face." He answered, his tone decidedly softer.
Almost friendly… A'luet thought. He had noticed P'sy's hostility was mainly focused on the female soldier.
"Because she's argumentative and opinionated, two extremely maddening traits for a female ooman." The older predator's words came back to him. "It's one thing if it's your aunt fine, its expected with Issa, but HER….."
"Don't touch it." P'sy snapped to the boy. "Unless you want to lose fingers."
"It's dead isn't it?"
"Touch it and find-"
"Its blood is like acid." A'luet interrupted P'sy. "Even dead it can hurt you."
"Oh." The teen backed away, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"I still can't believe you used us as bait."
P'sy let out a frustrated growl.
"Actually it was pretty smart." Kelly's antagonistic attitude was gone. "I would have done it."
"That as close as a good job we'll expect to receive from you?"
She shot P'sy a look and then changed the subject. "So what's your next move?"
The roar of several helicopters drowned out any words P'sy could have said, the trees above their heads bending dangerously.
Rapid voices broke the silence, static interrupting the words.
"What is that?" P'sy demanded.
"A radio." Dallas held it up. "Eddie Morales gave it to me earlier."
"Actually speaking of that…" Jessie perked up. "What do we call you? I mean if we're going to work together or we stand in as your bait technique-" She cast the dead facehuggers a guarded look. "-we should know each other's names at least."
P'sy only let silence reign for a moment before he directed his question at Dallas. "Who is that, you speak of?"
"Eddie Morales?"
"Yes, Eddie Morales." P'sy's tone grew impatient.
"He's the sheriff."
"What is that?" A'luet asked.
"The ooman version of an arbitrator, only weaker, stupider and a lot less intimidating."
The radio continued to squawk.
"What is it saying?"
"They're gathering all the people in the center of town."
"Why would they do that? Wouldn't that make them sitting ducks for those things?" Kelly asked.
"Yeah it would." P'sy answered. "Is your government implementing a depopulation plan you don't know about?"
"What?"
"Would they do that?" Jessie.
"They have in the past." P'sy murmured. "Every time, when there's an outbreak. Easier to detonate and fry everything than it is to take care of an infestation manually with little human toys." He nodded to the rifle in Kelly's hands.
"That's crap. I've never heard of such a thing and I've been serving the military for eight years."
"So just because you haven't heard of it, it doesn't exist?"
"That completely undermines everything this country stands for."
"Let me tell you something lady, no government is ever 100% loyal to its sycophants. If they can avoid the general public finding out about Gunnison, Colorado, being a hotbed for those Kainde Amedha, they will. Think Long Island. Think Chernobyl… you really going to stand there and tell me I'm wrong about something I know so much more about than you?"
The woman was lost for words.
"What do we do?"
"The hospital has its own helicopter, can you fly it?" Dallas posed the question to Kelly.
"Yeah." She was still trying to digest the information P'sy hit her with.
"How about this, we'll get you to that helicopter, you get your asses on it and fly out of here."
"What about you?" Jessie.
"Don't worry about us."
"Deal." Kelly agreed. "But we aren't your decoys anymore. I don't know what you are but we're in this unfortunately together, we work together."
P'sy glanced at A'luet. "Fine." He trailed off for a moment. "P'sy."
Confusion pinched the humans' faces.
"P'sy… is your name?"
"Yeah, this is A'luet, my student."
"Dallas." The man answered. "My brother Ricky and his friend Jessie."
"I'm Kelly." The woman offered quietly. "And my daughter Molly."
P'sy cocked his head, dreads sliding from one shoulder to another. "I cannot guarantee the safety of the young one, know that."
The woman gave a jerked nod and looked away. "She has nowhere else to go."
P'sy agreed in a low click. Then. "Let's go."
….
Automatic doors sat partially open, frozen, a thick secretion jamming the slider.
"What is this?" Jessie reached out to it, slime coating her fingers.
"Compacted shit."
A revolted expression came over her face as she was quick to wipe it off on her skirt.
"From what?" Ricky asked. "Those alien things in the store?"
"Yes." P'sy was studying the darkened hallway.
"That's a lot of shit." Dallas.
"No kidding."
"Do you hear anything?" P'sy asked A'luet. The younger predator paused.
"No, should I?"
"That's my point." P'sy started down the hall, his strong stride quickly leaving the humans behind who were quick to follow them. "This is real life A'luet, I know I don't have to tell you that but from now on you are equal to me."
"Equal?"
"Yes." P'sy paused, turned to him. "You do not have to ask permission, you do what you feel is right."
A'luet watched him, silent. Then. "Okay."
"How many bullets you got left in that gun?" P'sy posed the question to the ooman soldier.
"Half a clip… but I took more from the store."
"Good."
"We should keep them between us, so they don't lose us." A'luet's attention turned to their fragile charges. When P'sy didn't answer he added with some sarcasm. "Or we can let them run like rabbits and use them as bait."
"Nah, the guilt would get to me when I decide to let it affect me."
"No you wouldn't."
P'sy snorted. "It almost sounded convincing." Clattering ahead broke off their conversation, a gurney slid into view as a large shadow loomed on the wall.
A hulking, nonhuman shadow.
"Ready?"
A'luet nodded, pulling his combi stick free from its sheath on his back. "Stay between us." He fell back so the humans were shepherd forward, the little girl's wide eyes on him as she clutched her mother.
There was no sign of the kainde amedha as they ventured further into the hospital, only an increase in the hardened secretion creating an almost beehive looking environment. Up ahead P'sy paused before turning into a room labelled Surgical suite. Pushing the swinging doors open he disappeared inside, the humans trailing behind.
"Uh, what's that smell?"
P'sy froze, his biomask pointed towards the dark corner of the room.
Switching his mask to a different setting, the cooling heat signature of a human worker lit up, the different swaths of blue pointing to the single option of leaving the carcass.
"Z'skvy-de, chest bursters…. Shit." P'sy growled under his breath. "The bitch just doesn't know when to quit dropping her spawn."
"Maybe nuking the town is the best option." A'luet hated saying it.
P'sy grunted an agreement.
A side wall buckled and collapsed, a newly molted alien diving through. A scream skated across A'luet's biomask mic, distorting his hearing for several costly seconds. The tail whipped out and slammed him across the chest, the alien rightfully pinpointing P'sy as the more dangerous target, thus the one she should get rid of first. P'sy hissed, his wrist blade extending into the alien's head. No sooner did she fall another took her place.
Disentangling himself from the shattered operating table A'luet spied his combi-stick laying under the wreckage of medical equipment. He grabbed it to join the fight as P'sy killed another but missed the hulking and powerful body of the Predalien as it slapped him away like he was nothing. It let out a screech, no doubt alerting its offspring to its location. A'luet kicked an oxygen tank at its head, stopping it mid-squeal. Enraged, it threw the tank off to the side, the impact busting a hole in it, shooting compressed air out.
"A'luet! The oomans!" Another alien rushed P'sy, he rolled with the impact throwing the snapping freak off him.
Only Kelly remained, her gun pointed and shooting, the ooman child in the corner behind her hands clasped over her ears. The other three were missing.
"Damn it!" He sprinted out of the room, looked down both lengths of the hallway. Running feet sounded off to his right so he followed, quickly gaining on the three humans. The girl, Jessie, in front having been scared off by the warring aliens. The boy, trying to stop her, and the older man, chasing his brother. Idiots.
The hall bent in a U, debris littering the ground, more secretion hardening like a dirty hive. Large chunks of the walls were missing from where the aliens smashed through several walls to get to them in the surgery suite.
A'luet was gaining on them when he heard a whistling, growing louder by the second. All at once he realized what the sound was as he caught up and passed the older brother. Only reacting, he punched the boy open handed, Ricky hit the unforgiving wall and crumpled in a heap. A'luet dove for Jessie, tackling her as she managed a surprised squeak and hit the floor just as a large shuriken sailed over their heads and nailed the wall where she would have been. An angry hiss followed the open jaws of an alien who doubled back upon seeing two of her hive mates lose their heads to the flying shuriken.
Jessie scrambled to her knees and backpedaled, hitting into A'luet in panic. The caster came up, red dots missed by his intended victim, a fatal error on her part. The head popped, acid blood showering the walls and floor.
Through the broken walls P'sy was barely visible from the smoking remains of the aliens he killed.
"Don't run." He said once he was close enough. "It excites them." He stopped in front of the ooman girl as she slowly stood. His powerful hand shot out and grasped her by the jaw, his grip strong but gentle. "It missed her?"
A'luet nodded. "Yeah." He reached up and jerked the weapon out of the wall, closing it up before handing it back. "Sorry about that, you didn't break anything did you?"
Ricky shook his head. "No." His eyes only on the girl.
As if they were at a loss of what to do, they suddenly embraced, the affection at first awkward before melting into something more natural.
P'sy moved away to the elevator shaft as Kelly joined them.
"You didn't have to do that." Her tone held a surprise, like she never would have expected either predator to save them from certain death. "Thank you."
"We need to keep moving, not to be a pushy asshole." P'sy turned back to them. "The helicopter is on the roof."
Dallas nodded. "He's right. Let's go."
Rage and claws appeared from seemingly nowhere, slamming into P'sy with such force the banging and slamming echoed all the way down the elevator shaft.
"P'sy!" A'luet slid to a stop at the lip of the shaft, his training telling him to follow but the emotional side of him kept the humans in mind.
He couldn't leave them. P'sy had 500 years of combat experience, if anyone could survive he would. The older predator would have rather him get the oomans to the helicopter.
"Do you see him?" The two older humans came alongside him, pointing their rifle lights down the shaft, but they could see nothing.
Frustration hit him hard. He lost one mentor, he didn't want to lose another. Without thinking he slammed the wall with a fist, scaring Dallas back a few steps, a perfect indentation caving the metal.
"Sorry." He muttered.
"It's fine." Dallas tried to act causal even as his gaze strayed to the fist mark on the wall.
Kelly was watching him closely. "We can go after him."
A'luet stepped back. "No, you need to get to the helicopter."
"We have a saying. No man left behind."
A'luet studied her silently. "Not in our culture. He'll meet us there."
"How can you be so sure of that?"
He half gestured to his biomask. "We're linked. He's not dead yet I can still see him on my radar. Let's go."
Ricky stepped forward, a large metal device in his hands, he held it out. "He dropped it."
It was a modified caster. P'sy's must have broke with one of the many hits he took. A'luet went to take it but hesitated. "You know how to shoot?"
Ricky nodded, confused.
A'luet took it, pointing out a digital symbol. "See this. When the lines align like this, it's ready to shoot. This is the trigger." He gave it back, Ricky gingerly taking it. "Careful, the trigger can be sensitive, we don't need you shooting one of us."
"Sure." The teen made sure to keep his fingers away from the trigger.
A'luet turned, looked down the long hall. "You got a plane to catch."