**Note: Good morning all, so I will be posting Astarte chapters a bit more often from now on. This is for a few reasons. I have more books in the works for the Xenomorph series and need to get going on them. I have also been working on a personal book that I am looking at actually getting printed, but have lots of work to be done on that. So there might be a pause on my fan fiction stories with Amun and his family, OR there will be a flood of more stories of Amun! So keep an eye out! **

Chapter Twenty

The Hard choices

"I…I…" She struggled to find a response, not knowing what the best choice of action was. But it was her response that confirmed her presence to all her trapped sisters in the tuck above. Her mind was hit with a painful wave of voices, all overlapping one another, fighting to be heard. Her whole body tensed from the mental pain, almost causing her to lose grip on the bottom of the truck. She had to get them to stop, she could not hear her own voice in her head. "Quiet please sisters." The voices continued. "Please, I cannot think when you all talk at once." No one heard her.

"SILENCE!" In a burst of frustration, she sent out a strong mental yell which brought with it the silence that she needed. As the pressure in her head subsided, she let out a sigh. "Please, I just...I need a moment, I am not going anywhere."

Holding onto the various parts of the undercarriage to keep her in place, she now had a moment to think. She could not just leave this many of her sisters to be distributed and lost to the wind. She would have no way to find them all unless she wanted to memorize each and every drop off point. Then, attempt to re-locate them all. Even then, there was no guarantee that the locations of the drops were the locations they would be kept at. Even more so, she could not leave them in the hands of people who may treat them as her 'owner' had. She could not. She let out a sigh, there was only one thing she could do. She had no idea if it was the smartest idea, but it felt like the right one. She gently reached out for her sisters.

"Ok, I need only one of you to respond, I cannot help if we all chat at the same time. Who was the one who I heard first?" A soft, sheepish voice responded back.

"Me."

"I am not angry sister, I'm sorry for yelling but it was the only way to get all of you to hear me. Listen, I will not leave you, but I will need all your help. At the next drop location, once the back of the truck is open, I will ambush the drivers and passengers. I think they are the only ones with guns. Then, I can get to you. But only then. I don't think I can open the back of the truck otherwise. Do you understand?"

"I understand." The first voice responded.

"Everyone else hear that?" She was met with soft words of acknowledgment from all the xeno's above her. "Good, now we will have to sit tight, I don't know how long it will be until we stop moving. So get comfortable." There were no responses this time, so she herself worked to find a more comfortable position. It was not much later when a voice broke the constant rumble of the engine that she had been listening to.

"Sister?" She recognized it as the first who had responded to her.

"Yes?"

"Who are you?" It was a good question, but somehow felt very odd.

"My name is Astarte, what is yours?" A strange moment of silence. "Sister?"

"I…I am seven-zero-five."

"That is your name?"

"It was the only thing that they called me in the labs."

"I thought mother would have given you a name before you left that place." Another strange moment of silence. "Is something wrong."

"You said mother…"

"Yes…Jollene, our mother…have you not...have you not heard her? Met her?"

"No…I haven't. I was born not long ago, went through training, now I am here." Astarte felt a wave of sadness from her sister. "Some of us have never met her, we are born far away and never feel her mind. Others, who are lucky, are born close and learn her voice, are guided by her love but…they are soon ripped away from her as well. Or worst." The last few words worried her.

"Worst?"

"Sometimes…sometimes they do things to us. Things that don't let us hear mother, they did it to one-two-one. She was with mother for a long time and one day they sent her to sleep. She woke up and could never hear mother again. They did something to her, something…inside." As this xeno told her story, Astarte started to wonder. She had not been able to her Jolene for quite some time either. She slowly ran her hand along her domed head, thinking she would find some kind of marking or scar. Nothing.

"Seven-zero-five, how many others did they do this to?"

"Many. Once they knew they were ready to be sold, they were taken and put to sleep. So, there have been many." She answered.

"How many? Do you remember specifically?" Astarte feared the answer, but also knew what was coming.

"I know of thirty-six that this was done too…Claire knows of forty-three…and Rose knows of eighty-six." Astarte's body froze.

One hundred and sixty-five more of her sisters were most likely out there somewhere, cut off from their family. She only hoped that they were being taken better care of than she had been. How on earth would she find them all, she could spend years looking and still get nowhere. Her mind went back to her father, he would be able to help, she knew he would.

"Seven-zero-five, listen, I have a plan. You know Amun, yes? Our father?" She felt a wave of excitement that was not her own. "I'll take that as a yes. We need to find him, he's the only one that knows this world, he will be able to help find our sisters. I know it."

"But how? No one knows where he is."

"I have an idea where, but it is a long way from here. So, we need to get you all out of this truck and get moving."

"Ok, we can do that."

"Make sure the others know the plan." There was a feeling of acknowledgement, then silence that Astarte was glad for, she needed some time to process. She let out a long sigh.

So many…there were over a hundred of her sisters sold as pets that she could not just leave to their fate. She just couldn't, not after what had happened to her. Those cold, hungry nights were still too fresh within her mind. She hated the thought of any of her family having to go through that in any way. So, she would save them, she would save them all. The silent vow drilling itself into her very soul. She stayed in silence for a short while longer before the high pitch squeak of the brakes pierced her head. They had come to a stop.

Astarte quickly turned around and made her way to the back of the truck, still staying underneath its metal frame. She listened as the two large passenger doors opened, and then multiple boots hit the ground. The gravel crunched under their heavy footsteps as they got closer to the hidden xeno. She watched as they came into view on either side of the truck. With her large field of view, she was able to watch both of them simultaneously as they walked along and rounded the rear of the metal container. Then, they both paused, facing the back of the truck. A spike of panic filled Astarte, thinking she might have not gone unnoticed. She started making plans for everything that could happen and how to react. However, she froze when a voice cut the silence.

"Hello Mr. White, we are with the company, are you at the address?...Yes, two guards will be up shortly, then your item will follow." It was a male voice, middle aged and gritty. It sounded nothing like the scientists from her lab. But they were nowhere near her lab right now. The one set of boots turned to the other as she heard a second voice.

"What you think, done by seven tonight?"

"Hell if I know, if these rich pricks would hurry up we might be lucky to get off at nine. They always make drop off's longer than they should be." There was a laugh from the second one.

"Yeah. They always like to show off some expensive piece of crap or wait to show off their xeno. Like, buddy, I see these things all day. Yours is nothing special."

"Right? Like we don't do this from Monday to Friday to make sure we put food on the table. Some of us need to work to make money, not sit around at let everyone else make it for us."

"Yea. Can you imagen if they ever had to- hold up…Hello…roger that, crate seven-five-zero got it…we will be right up. Alright, first one from the back, let's get it out."

Astarte watched as one pair of boots found foot holds on the frame of the truck and climbed up and out of sight. There were a few audible sounds and then some kind of metal latching opening. The loud sound of a door swinging open as the boots impacted the ground in front of her. Astarte brought her tail up and beside her head, ready to strike. She waited until the boots were not facing one another and she gently scratched the leg of the human on the left.

"Ow! What the fuck wasssss-uuuugh." She watched as the poison worked quickly to knock the man unconscious.

"Gary?" Too late, her tail flashed over to the other set of legs and made a nice scratch into its flesh. "Ow, fuck! Shit, the hell isssss…" They fell with a crash. Part one of the plan was done. Astarte quickly bolted from underneath the truck and scanned her surroundings.

They had parked beside a large building with an open field to the were two large doors on the outside of the building, probably the ones that they were about to take her sister through. She quickly leapt and landed on the wall above the doors, turning to face the ground. There she waited in ambush for the two-armed guards that would likely show up any second. They had not been in the truck with the other two, so she had to assume they had arrived in another vehicle.

It didn't take long for the answer to come in the form of the two men appearing from the doors. They only made it a foot or two before they noticed the two sleeping men on the ground. Their guns came up and started to search the area in front of them. Where they didn't look was the building above them. Astarte pounced onto the one on the right, slamming them into the ground. As they landed, her tail snapped over to the second guard and her tail stuck deep into the side of his leg. The man yelled but went silent as her poison worked fast. As the man fell to the ground, she retracted her tail and moved it into position to puncture the man she was pinning to the ground. She was about to jam it into his side when she paused. The man called out to her.

"Wait! Wait wait wait, please don't. Don't kill me!" He begged. She thrusted her blade into his side, not too deep, but enough to make it hurt. She listened as he yelped, and then his breathing went from a panic to a slow and soft rhythm.

Knowing he was now unconscious as well, she sprinted to the truck and leapt inside. She was greeted with the anticipation of her sisters. Those that could all moved to look at her as she stood in the frame of the container. Like some kind of hero. She wasted no time and went to the first container, her sister inside pushed up to the glass and waited. Astarte looked over the clear box and noticed the same set of buttons that had been on the outside of Crystals box. As she looked at the keypad, the familiar voice of seven-five-zero came to her mind.

"I do not know the code." Astarte looked to the xeno within the box in front of her, knowing this was now seven-five-zero.

Curiosity took over as she wondered just how smart this company was. Astarte used her clawed hand to punch in the same sequence of buttons that they had used to open Crystal's container. There was a buzzing noise, a pop, and the glass of the container gently released from its frame. Astarte backed out of the way and allowed seven-five-zero to push the door open. She stepped out and looked at her physically bigger sister.

"Thank you. Thank you so much for not leaving us." The words were covered with happiness. Astarte sent her all the love she could.

"We need to free the others, and quickly. Here, memorizes this code." Astarte brought her over to the next closest container and punched in the code slowly. The door, once again, popped open, releasing another one of her sisters. Astarte looked to seven-five-zero. "Go, let the others out. We need to get going, and fast."

Seven-five-zero moved with a purpose, heading right for the next closest container. Astarte watched as she hit the proper button combination to open the door, then right to the next. She herself kept going and helped to release the last of the imprisoned xenomorphs. They had been gathering outside of the truck as Astarte and seven-five-zero had worked, so as she watched the last of her sisters jump down from the base of the truck, she moved to follow. As she looked out over the small group of aliens, who all now looked to her, she felt nothing but hope for her and her family.

"What now?" She heard one of them ask. She was answered, not by Astarte, but by the sound of the large doors on the building swinging open as two humans appeared.

"Freeze!" The one yelled as they raised a small handgun.

"We run! GO!" Astarte yelled and pointed towards the open field. In milliseconds, each and every xeno was sprinting into the tall grass that was now in front of them. The wall of trees on the other side of the field approaching with speed. Astarte ran, following her sisters to freedom. She could not help but feel the happiness that was radiating from each and every one of them. It made her happy as well. Her sisters were safe, she was another step closer to her goal, and she would be with Evelynn soon.

She just knew it.