James, sightline set at the two and a half meter mark, stared in horrified awe at the colossus before him. A monument to human hubris. Tracey stood at his side, mirroring his assessment. The structure of Epsilon Research Center loomed in the dark, swirling clouds of toxic gas. Travis Gordon had once stood in this very spot, his arrival marking a new age for humanity.

"Are you okay?" James asked.

"I'm okay. Let's go." Tracey was determined.

James had offered to bring their trip to PX-961 after they had spent three weeks touring the solar system. They landed on every major body that had a surface, and at least dipped into the atmosphere of the few gas giants that didn't. And they had returned to the moon, as promised. But after, Tracey had said yes, accepting the opportunity to face the site of her greatest professional failure, and the most traumatic moments of her life. It had taken them two weeks to reach, and James had filled the time with comfort and love towards his partner.

They started forward, ducking as they slid smoothly through the entrance. The hallways were too short for them to walk upright, so they dropped to all limbs and took a more predatory gate. This site had been abandoned by Wey-Yu, but no concerted effort had been made to cleanse it of the horrors that occurred within these stark walls. It was possible, however unlikely, that a living specimen lurked within these walls. If such a beast remained, it wouldn't for much longer.

They moved silently through the base, taking in the sites and sounds, lifeless. James followed Tracey to the location of the lab where she had spent eight months studying what would eventually become one of her greatest fears. She opened her Traveler and put her feet down on the deck of the room. She ran a hand over the console she had spent most of her time on, and a tear trickled down her face as she surveyed the spot where she had watched a friend and colleague be violently ripped apart and dragged away.

"They're here," James said evenly. "Three. Moving fast."

James had never seen Tracey angry. She was so kind, and thoughtful, rage seemed in violation of her makeup. And yet, rage flowed across their mental link in devastating waves as James got a glimpse of what his lover had planned.

"Let them come," she hissed aloud and in his mind.

James at first wanted to tell her to get back into her suit. The thought of her facing down a monster in her still human looking skin was more than terrifying, but he couldn't bring himself to speak the words. She would ignore them in any case. They came from three directions. Two through the hallway James still occupied, and a third through the breached wall on the other side of the lab, seemingly corroded by powerful acid James knew all too well. A single slash of his tail decapitated one Xeno before it comprehended how outmatched it was. He captured the other in a single large hand, then ripped it in half, silencing its shriek of pain with a single stomp to its elongated cranium after he dropped the two halves to the ground.

Tracey's battle was long and visceral. A suitless Traveler was powerful, but a Xeno could be argued to be a match. James watched in pinched silence, ready to step in if he was needed, but otherwise resolute in his decision to let Tracey have her chance to reclaim herself.

It shot into the room, righting itself and turning to face the human shaped being it instinctively knew was not. It hissed, and Tracey lunged. She kicked it so hard its chest armor cracked and acidic blood seeped out. It slammed against the wall and Tracey closed the distance a second time. She punched it, once, twice, three times. Left, right, up. It rallied, firing its piston-like inner jaw at her like a javelin of teeth and terror. She caught it, and snapped it off, grabbing the creature by the throat and launching it bodily across the room.

The most unsettling part about watching this from the outside, was the calm silence maintained by the beautiful woman he adored. Her face was a blank mask, though her thoughts were tumultuous. She took the monster apart. Piece by piece. Blow by blow. It slashed at her with claws. She broke its arm at the elbow. It tried to bite her. She placed a hand on its upper jaw, and one on its lower, and heaved, snapping muscle and chitin as the lower jaw detached. It thrusted with its tail. She caught it, and used it like the handle on a flail, whipping the creature first into the ceiling and then into the floor. In the end, she pinned it, struggling beneath her, to the floor with a bare foot planted on its back. She reached down and made the first sound since the battle began. She gripped its head and pulled, muscles straining. She screamed in rage, and regret, as the head came free of its body.

James freed himself of his own suit as Tracey collapsed, sobbing, the severed head resting in her lap. He wrapped an arm around her and poured reassurance into her mind. He might have been fearful of intrusion into their quiet moment of recovery, but if any monsters remained, they would be extremely hesitant to follow after the slaughter that had taken place there. In any case, with minimal training, Tracy had just destroyed the monster of both their nightmares with near perfect efficiency. If he needed to, it would take him less than two seconds to get control of his suit and begin eliminating threats with extreme prejudice.

"Let's go," James said softly. "There's nothing left for us here."

She released the head, and her emotional turmoil at the same moment, returning to her suit and following James back out to the landing pad where the Horizon waited. As it lifted into the space above PX-961's atmosphere, Tracey wrapped her arms around one of James, leaning her head against his shoulder. Her mind was clear. Her fear was gone.

"Where to next?" she asked.

"Aegis IV. I need to see it."

She nodded. "Come join me in bed once we're underway."

He did.

"I hadn't expected it," she said, each simply holding the other. "How much of a gap there would be. They're so fast, and so strong, and yet…"

"We're faster and stronger," James agreed, a thought creeping into his mind that caused him to do something he hadn't done in almost two years. He hid something from her. Really hid it. Not like with the surprise. He didn't want her to hear this.

He'd arrived at a harrowing realization as he spoke words of their superiority. Throughout human history, his former species had encountered a variety of creatures. Some resembling that of XX121. There had certainly been parasites of all kinds. Until the Nostromo had arrived on LV-426, their reaction had always been to simply avoid exposure. Not until that day, had any member of humanity considered genocide as the only effective solution to the threat posed by another species. So what was different? Certainly the creatures had been created with malicious intent. And they certainly displayed malice themselves, but was that malice born of sadism, or programming? Were these creatures evil, merely because they had been created by someone with evil intent? James wasn't so sure anymore. This had been his first interaction with them after his transition to Traveler, and there had been no competition. He and his species represented the new apex predator in the universe.

What right did he have to declare a species unfit to exist in the same universe as him. Did that make him any better than David, the malfunctioning and much abused android? XX121 had not asked to be created, and by all rights, they never should have been created. But they had been. Should they be wiped out merely for the crime of propagating their species? Was that not the imperative of every species?

But there was a counterpoint. Had there ever been a species more determined to replace all other life with instances of itself? Humanity was probably the closest, but even at their most twisted points in history, they operated with just enough tolerance to avoid outright and deliberate genocide, despite some attempts by certain individuals.

Again, the Xenomorphs were unique in that, given the chance, they would propagate to the exclusion of all else, leaving destruction and death in their wake. Perhaps they were not evil in and of themselves, but the simple irrefutable fact was that they were incompatible with a universe containing life.

James comprehended his position of preeminence in that moment. His understanding that XX121 did not deserve annihilation, did not change a single thing. They still needed to be destroyed. Not because they were evil, but because it would be evil not to stop them. Allowing them to exist would mean the genocide of every other species in the universe. James took this guilt into himself, accepting his new reality.

He opened his mind fully to Tracey again, revealing all that he had learned and decided. She was stunned. Her instant reaction was denial, but her mind floundered in the understanding that her arguments contained no logic. James was right. XX121 deserved to live, and yet could not be permitted to.

"I refuse to feel guilt," Tracey muttered. "Not for them."

"I'm glad," James replied.

She pulled away to look at him, observing the sadness on his face. "But you still do."

It wasn't a question. "Yes."

"Stop."

"I can't. And you know why."

"They're monsters."

"What is a monster?"

"They exist just to hurt others."

"So do some humans."

"And we hate them."

"How can I hate something that didn't choose its imperative?"

"Is there something I can say that will convince you?"

James shook his head. His head was full of acceptance, and guilt.

"Is there something I can say to make you feel better?"

"Lot's of things probably."

"How about, 'I love you'?"

"It helps."

"I love you. Even though you've stupidly decided to feel remorse for something not requiring it."

"I love you too."

Their arrival on Aegis IV was quiet. James slid into the cockpit, and instantly was forced to open his suit so he could use his eyes. The planet was green and blue. There were no radio signals. No power signatures. And the site that had once been called Sutter's Ridge, was home to an ecosystem that made it unidentifiable to the naked eye. In short, the planet was beautiful, showing no signs of the conflict that had felt so world shattering. Even the nuclear detonation had done no lasting damage to that beauty. It seemed almost criminal to set foot on such sacred ground after it had gone through the effort of healing.

Despite his hesitance, James' hands began guiding the ship onto a reentry path, driven not by logic or intent, but by a primal need he didn't fully comprehend. The ship burned to a halt, maintaining a hover over the site of his darkest days. He shifted the Horizon's bulk, dropping it smoothly down into a clearing and throttling the engines so as not to scorch the blue-green grass on this alien world. Then, everything was still. Tracey had been standing behind him not feeling his reverence in and of herself, but rather experiencing it through him. They made their way out of the ship, placing armored feet down on soft soil and a vibrant carpet of plants.

James knew that nothing of his nightmares had survived the detonation here. It would have all been incinerated. He didn't need the violent retribution his partner had wrought. He'd been a soldier. Outmatched as he was, he'd gotten his chance to fight long before he became a Traveler. He no longer feared for his life, but something still drew him to this place. An opportunity to reflect, he supposed. A respite from the realities of his new existence, which he had to keep reminding himself had no end.

Tracey stood by his side, one of her chitin covered hands taking one of James softer ones. He'd worn armored gloves during their visit to PX-961, but on Aegis IV, he chose to forgo the added protection. He accepted the comforting contact easily, and pulled them forward into a ring of grassy fields that was the only obvious sign that something had interfered with the natural landscape. The warhead had been air-bursted, so there was no crater, and the grass had reasserted itself across the entire area. The tree line, already partially cleared for the settlement that had been there, was beginning to creep back in as well.

James' mind could do all kinds of things, though the challenge he then embarked upon was revitalizing his old human memories, generating a kind of map. In just a few minutes, he was able to utilize still existing landmarks to pinpoint his location down to a few meters. It was how, after only a few minutes of walking, he crouched and placed a hand on the flat ground that had been the location of a harrowing escape by three frazzled and terrified marines, except there had been four when they entered the ship. James had been the pilot. He remembered yelling in frustration and fear as one of the monsters had leapt up to the transparent alloy covering his cockpit. It would have taken nearly five minutes for it to break that armored canopy. James had barely given it five seconds. He put the dropship into a dizzying spin that dislodged the monster, and three others that were attempting to enter by other means.

They had made it out. Most of them in any case. Because as soon as he had engaged the autopilot and gone back to check on his companions, he'd discovered that his actions had not gone unpunished. During the spin, a munitions rack had collapsed, crushing a still breathing, but fatally wounded Sergeant Molly Lowne. Her last words had been to comfort him, making him swear to get everyone home alive. She'd made him swear not to blame himself. He hadn't. There hadn't been another way. And if he'd had the chance to do it a second time, that wasn't one of the things he'd have changed.

It was shockingly easy for James to close himself off from his senses, and in a rush of emotion, release his guilt. With it, went his last remaining dregs of fear. His anger. His hate. And most important, his blaming of XX121. The world filtered back in around him as he took it in with a new perspective. The universe had become a kinder, quieter place in those few seconds. It was easy to accept the small and insignificant nature of human and Traveler struggles alike. The universe was not an indifferent observer, but a fierce force of will. It was not evil. It was not good. It simply was. And it defended the continuation of life with a tenacity James could only begin to comprehend. He respected it. He saw that as kindness. The universe played host to life. It was the job of life itself, to form itself into something worth existing. It was his job. The role of every sapient being in the universe. They hadn't done a very good job in that task, but they hadn't failed. They would improve, given the chance.

Tracey couldn't help but be swept up in the currents of purpose flowing through James mind. Though she still fought against the implications of remorse in his head, she began to understand it through this new lens. Life would continue. They could all be wiped out, and it would find a way in spite of that disaster. But merely continuing was a waste. They could be so much more than simply alive. James felt a sudden obligation. He let loose the power and force he'd contained since his new 'eyes' had opened almost two years before. There was a fierce joy to the motion of limbs as he dropped onto all six of them and moved at blinding speed through the forest. The ridge that had been the source of the name of the doomed colony, loomed before them even as they leapt up and began scaling the sheer wall of rock with clawed hands and feet.

They flipped up onto the ledge and became motionless as they took in the devastatingly beautiful sight. James then spun, and began dragging large chunks of rock into positions pleasing to his mind. In the end, he'd moved more than a dozen large rocks into place. He began to carve. Tracey stood with him, patiently giving him the same autonomy he'd afforded her just days before. Day and night passed in a cyclical loop as he worked. He didn't notice. Finally, his work was done. Inscribed on these rocks, was a kind of memorial.

"Here lies Sutter's Ridge. This tragedy was an example of hubris, and also a demonstration of the tenacity of life. Each person lost here represents an opportunity for all beings to become more than they were. May they rest now, entombed in all the glory of lives well lived, cut short too soon."

On the rocks surrounding that large one, were the names. James had prepared himself for this task. Each and every name was there. The colonists. The soldiers. Even the technicians that weren't officially assigned, but had been present when the outbreak began. The soldier's names were inscribed on the four largest rocks, surrounding the others, as if protecting them. James had included Colonel Deet in the list of losses. She'd never recovered from her guilt, and so Sutter's Ridge claimed one last life months after the rest.

"It's beautiful," Tracey thought to him, emotion clinging to the words.

"It is. Thank you for waiting."

"It wasn't much of a hardship, Love."

"This… This world… They never came back for it. Wey-Yu never tried to return. Reopening the files surrounding this world would bring more damage for their company than the natural resources here are worth to them. I think that this place could be a new beginning. A haven for an upstart species ready to set down a few roots. I'm going to offer it to Gordon. It shouldn't be difficult to start setting things up. I don't like the idea of stripping it for resources, but with a careful hand, this place can be a part of our new society without becoming a victim of it."

Tracey agreed. "Now what?"

James considered. "Would you like to build a house with me?"

Her response was a flood of warm emotions. They bolted into the forest. They didn't stop for a long time, covering more than eight hundred kilometers in just a few hours. When James sat his suit down and opened it, Tracey gave him a questioning flutter of thought.

"We're building a house."

"And we have two suits. Ready made for construction and a lot of other things."

"Where's the fun in that?" James grinned, making his intentions clear in her mind.

"This doesn't sound like fun at all," she grumbled, climbing out of her own suit.

"What's the point of building a home with two bodies that don't need one? Let's build it using shapes that will enjoy the creation."

James' knowledge of wood working was entirely theoretical, and it showed. He remembered contemplating this idea when he'd first gotten inside his suit. He enjoyed the experience of working with his hands. He built a primitive kiln and forge, slowly assembling tools that they would use to construct a semblance of a sanctuary for just the two of them. They worked for three months. They spent their nights under the stars, working, learning, and continuing a passionate physical intimacy that neither of them ever tired of. Their daylight hours weren't much different.

James developed his skills quickly, assembling tools, equipment, and structures faster than any normal human could have. Tracey by contrast, simply utilized skills she was already in possession of. She studied the plants and animals in the surrounding area, assembling a compendium of information. Travelers could be poisoned, but it took a tremendously powerful, and usually artificial, substance. None such substances were present on that world, allowing her to taste and quickly identify what plants were safe to consume from a human perspective. She began a kind of garden. Eventually, it began to more closely resemble a farm.

Foodstuffs would not be a critical component of a new society of Travelers, rather a commodity. A part of the entertainment infrastructure, rather than a critical one. And moreover, such materials would make good exports to humanity.

As their humble and comfortable little world assembled around them, James found a lingering thought that bounced between his mind and Tracey's.

"I don't want to leave."

Neither of them knew what to do about it. Every second they spent there, basking in the warmth of each other, and the beautiful world they were shaping, made it feel more like home.

"I think we should check the ship," he said one morning. It had been a quiet few hours and their bodies were pressed together in ways that made it difficult to even consider separating. "We've been out of the loop for a long time. Three months."

"Mmm," she replied, her thoughts resistant.

"I don't want to either. We can come back. Whenever we want. But I think we should check at least."

She kissed his neck possessively, but in the end, she admitted defeat. They each began work on the final steps of their current projects, and readied themselves for travel. Their suits had lay dormant, patiently awaiting their return, and it was easy to huddle back inside them and become whole again. It took only a few hours to return to their landing site. Things were as they'd left them. The ship readily accepted the command to open, and James slid comfortably into the cockpit to perform a diagnostic and check for subspace messages.

There was a signal coming in, too faint to get any meaningful data from, but bearing the unmistakable consistency of a distress beacon. He tried to clean it up, but between the distance, and the atmosphere, it was a hopeless endeavor.

"We have to help if we can," Tracey said, mirroring his thoughts.

"Anything you want before we take off?"

Her response was wordless worry. James triggered the startup sequence, and the ship hummed pleasantly beneath his fingers. The engines spooled up, and the ship rose smoothly from the ground. Even as they left the atmosphere behind, trading for the black void of space, James was working the receiver. He got more data the higher he climbed, but all he was able to do was confirm it was a distress signal. He aligned the ship and engaged the FTL systems. Within an hour, he managed to get a single piece of the fragmented data stream cleanly displayed on his monitor. "Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. USS Sulaco requesting urgent assistance."

My upload schedule is Sundays. Unless otherwise specified. Or I get extremely distracted with life and stuff. Oof. Sorry about the delay in posting. I'm posting the two chapters I missed, plus one bonus chapter for my lapse. Enjoy! Posts will go back to the regularly scheduled Sundays now.

Credit for the Cover Art goes to my wonderful friend 𝐿𝒾𝓁𝓁𝒾𝓉𝒽.

This Chapter uses no generated content.

Story content for the early chapters written with the assistance of Chat GPT. Later chapters use less and less generated content. This story started as a kind of experiment. The results were good at first, but they began to drop off as the machine began to deviate further and further from my vision for this story. I'm sharing this information freely.