Alright, an explanation is owed:

It's been over two years since I updated this story. I am very convinced that all of the fans that I had, have either left the site or moved on to other fandoms. With that being said, I was going back and reading my own work. And this story especially lit a fire under me. I truly feel as though it's one of the most imaginative, dramatic, intense, and best written stories that's ever been posted to the AATC archive (and I've been following on and off for over 11 years).

So, I am gonna finish it. Because that's just the way I am. If you are an old fan who's been following me from the get go, I apologize for the long wait and I hope it was worth it. If you're just now discovering the story, then I hope you enjoy. Either way, please leave me a review or a PM after you finish this chapter letting me know exactly what you think.

Chapter 23: The Queen's Revenge

Theodore's POV

I woke up strapped into my rack, my arm around Eleanor. It was almost time for my cockpit watch. I was going to be getting a buzz from Brittany any moment; I could feel it. It's that feeling that you get when you wake up and you know your alarm hasn't gone off quite yet, but you can't fall back asleep. The sickening feeling of not wanting to get up was only amplified by the lack of gravity, hence my love and I needing to be strapped into my bed.

It was almost like she could hear me thinking, because her eyes slowly fluttered open.

"Hey," I sighed.

"Morning," she yawned. "Who has watch next? Do you know?"

I groaned. "Me."

She gave me her best sad face as she struggled through the tight straps to snuggle closer to me. "No," she whispered.

"Yes, baby."

"No, Brittany can pull a double shift. She won't mind."

I rolled my eyes. "If only. I would give anything to stay right here, trust me."

Without any warning she planted a kiss firmly on my lips. I kissed her back, locking in. Neither of us gave a damn about our bad breath as our tongues met. We explored each others' mouths for a few moments, even though we were very familiar, before breaking away.

"Every time feels like the first time with you," she giggled.

All I did was smile back at her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said.

"Stop looking at me like that," she groaned. "You make me feel subconscious."

I rolled my eyes and responded by holding her tighter.

And that's when it came. "Theoooooo," Brit's voice erupted from the 1MC (the ship's speaker system). "This is your wakeup call. You gotta get me off of watch. Get your ass to the cockpit, stat!"

I sighed. "I knew it."

Eleanor grimaced as I unclipped the bed straps, carefully making sure that she was able to stay in bed, and pulled myself out of the covers. I did my best to quickly get dressed as I floated in the middle of the cold, hard sleeping quarters.

Brittany's POV

My arms were so tired, as being on a human-sized spaceship, I couldn't buckle myself into the captain's chair and be able to adjust the ship at the same time. So the entire watch I had to hold on tightly to the wheel to prevent myself from floating aimlessly around the giant cockpit.

It had only been about 30 seconds since I had paged Theodore before a violent banging on the hatch to the cockpit startled me out of my mental auto-pilot. I spun around to look at the hatch in surprise. "That was fast," I muttered to myself as I let go of the wheel and used my legs to push off towards the port side of the control board. As soon as I landed, I hit the button which remotely opened the hatch.

It made a strong hissing sound as the automatic hydraulics inside of it pressurized.

All of a sudden something forcefully shoved it completely wide open, the handwheel smashing into the deck with a thud. I gasped and stared at the opening in the floor of the cockpit with wide eyes. To my shock, the Queen Martian herself used her jagged claws to pull herself effortlessly inside. She landed on the roof, and as soon as she made eye contact with me she inhaled deeply a few times through her nose, picked up my cent, and erupted into the most viciously and unforgivingly angry screech I had ever heard come from one of the creatures.

"Oh shit," I whispered under my breath, trembling from fear.

I quickly glanced over at the 1MC button which was completely across the cockpit as the Queen squared her hips towards me and bent her knees in a pouncing position, with a satisfied hiss and a smile on her face, and that killer's look in her eye. We stared at each other without moving for a few moments. I was the one who had burnt this mother's eggs to a crisp, and she knew it.

She licked her chops at me and let out an impressive grumble. Tears began to form in my eyes as every limb I had would not stop shaking. I quivered and felt like I was going to puke, knowing what this beast wanted to do to me. She was going to lunge at me any second. I had to think fast; the only way out was right underneath her, or I could call for help over the 1MC, but what was that going to do?

Without warning, she used her powerful hind legs to push off in my direction, floating in my direction so fast that I could do nothing but my first instinct. I evaded her by leaping towards the other side of the cockpit, landing on the windshield just above the button I was aiming for. I scrambled and spun my body around, pushing off and landing on top of the button. As soon as I heard the click I started screaming: "HELP ME! OH JESU-" but I was cut short by a large shadow falling over me before I was knocked backwards.

I flew, staring in shock at the Queen who had just jumped straight into me, until my back thudded against the windshield. She watched me struggle around in mid air, trying to find something to grab onto, with an evil grin on her face. I was damn near frozen from fear.

Suddenly a loud gasp came from the hatch in the floor. The Martian and I both snapped our gaze in that direction, only to see Theodore staring at the sight in front of him dumbfounded with his jaw wide open.

The Queen hissed at him before turning her attention back towards me, floating helplessly towards her. She grinned at me before opening her mouth as wide as she could, releasing her disgusting breath my way. She waited patiently as my thrashing body inched closer and closer towards her agape jaws with nothing I could do about it. I screamed as I was just inches away from a sharp, painful death. When suddenly, something swooped through and wrapped me up, pulling me away from the Martian's teeth just as she chomped down with crushing force similar to that of an alligator.

She snapped her head back in my direction, annoyance being ever more present in her expression. I looked at Theodore's face, still in his arms as we landed on the control panel. I almost couldn't believe it; he had just risked his life to save mine.

He stood me up next to him as we both grabbed onto the air pressure switch next to us. I gave him a grateful smile and choked up, "Theodore! I…"

But we weren't out of harm's way yet.

The Queen growled at us, getting obviously pissed off that I wasn't dead yet. She was done playing with me. She dug her claws more intensely into the control board she was standing on, and began stomping her way towards us. Every step she took, she pierced the steel support of the control board with her nails, not caring even the slightest bit what she was stepping on. Neither Theodore nor I moved a muscle. We were waiting for that perfect moment.

That moment came when the Queen stepped on the wrong switch. The reactor powering the ship scrammed within a split-second. Alarms began making their presence felt all over the ship; "alert! Reactor scram alarm in! Alert! Reactor scram alarm in!"

This was enough to shock and confuse the martian, forcing a defensive grumble out of her mouth as she surveyed the cockpit around her for the origin of the loud noises. It was our chance.

Theodore and I wasted no time in leaping for the hatch on the deck of the cockpit as strongly as we could. As we glided in zero gravity towards our escape, we could hear the objectinous hiss that the Queen blurted out.

We landed on top of the open hatch simultaneously, grabbing onto it for dear life. The Martian had already jumped after us.

"Go!" Theodore implored as he pushed me down the ladder way. "Go, dammit!"

I thrusted myself through the passage, barely even bothering myself with any ladder rungs. Theo flew right behind me, narrowly escaping the psychotic furry alien that was chasing us. We both landed hazardously into the floor of the main hallway, containing the kitchen, the infirmary, and the sleeping quarters.

Jeanette, who had obviously just woken up, watched us recover from our crash into the deck with wide eyes. "What the hell is going on?" she exclaimed.

As Theodore used his own body to push mine down the hallway, all I could do was turn my head at her and shout as I glided away, "the air lock! Flush her out!"

But before Jean could even comprehend what I was saying, the Queen shot through the ladder way into the ground violently, leaving a dent where I had been literally one second prior. In a fit of rage, the thrashed her claws out aggressively in all directions. Theo, who was unable to get out of her way in time, got swiped across his chest by her outburst. He shrieked in pain as he went flying backwards into the kitchen, clutching his wounds.

The martian didn't bother with Jeanette. Her focus was on me and me alone. She honed in on my figure floating away from her and refocused her energies on catching me. She launched herself down the hallway in my direction with her powerful hind legs, snarling furiously at the fact that it had been this hard to kill me.

All I could do was try to make it to the air lock and hope that my family did their part.

Jeanette's POV

As soon as Brittany and the Martian had disappeared down the hallway, Alvin and Eleanor emerged from the sleeping quarters with messed up hair and wrinkles around their eyes. "What's happening?" Alvin questioned me just as Theodore floated slowly back into view, still tenderly grabbing onto the slice across his chest. "What the fuck! Theo!" he exclaimed.

Both Al and Ellie rushed to the youngest chipmunk's side with concerned looks on their faces.

"We don't have time for this," I barked. "I need you all in the cockpit right now!"

Probably more out of curiosity than anything else, the others followed me up the ladder into the cockpit. The scram alarm was still ringing up here; "Alert! Scram alarm in! Alert! Scram alarm in!" I rushed over to the shim switch and immediately pulled it in my direction and held it. As the control rods to the reactor lifted out of the core, Eleanor flew into the button to acknowledge the alarm at full speed. The ship shut its mouth and that particular crisis was averted.

We all scrambled towards the motherboard computer screen.

"Jeanette," Alvin called after me, "will you please tell us what the hell is going on?"

"The Queen is onboard," Theodore answered for me as I awoke the computer system from her slumber. "It's after Brittany."

Alvin gasped. "Where are they? I'm going after them!"

"No!" I ordered. "That thing is only after her. We've got a plan to blow it the fuck off this ship and you'd only get in the way."

"But I-"

"Just… trust me," I assured him. "This is Brit and that alien."

With all of us huddled around the screen grabbing onto whatever we could so we don't float off, Motherboard gave me access to all of the camera feeds around the ship. I started going through the path that Brittany probably took on her path to the airlock.

I sighed anxiously. "There they are."

Brittany's POV

I felt like I was hyper-ventilating as I pushed and pulled myself through shafts and hallways as quickly and smoothly as I could, all the meanwhile this freakishly large creature chased me. It was stronger than me, faster than me, and more ruthless than me. My only advantage was that it was clumsy and not used to zero gravity. That was the only reason I wasn't dead yet.

"Shit," I muttered as one of her claw swiped came within inches of my left leg.

Please let Jeanette figure out what I'm doing, I thought to myself as I flew down the final ladder well. I quickly rotated myself and pushed with my legs towards the port turbine. I was in the engine room, the same deck as the air lock. There was more space down here which could either be a good or a bad thing.

I just needed to follow the path of that air shaft. The one Simon had gotten hurt in earlier. But the Queen was hot on my tail and it was as vocal as ever. She had the grace of a demonic killer turkey pursuing me through space, thrashing her body in all sorts of ways just to try to get me with one of her strong furry paws. I screamed as I struggled to stay ahead of her. Tears flowed of of my eyes, floating in a trail behind me after breaking off of my cheeks.

"Come on," I urged myself on. "Almost there. Come on…"

I zoomed past pipes, circuit breakers, valves, pumps, and tanks, only grabbing onto them if I felt like I needed momentum or I had to redirect myself. The Martian sounded like she collided with literally everything within her reach. But she also had the ability to recover and stay on my ass with ease. She still sounded pissed.

There it was: the air lock. The double tight doors still sealed it off from the rest of the ship.

"Come on, Jeannie, pull through for me one more time."

Suddenly, the doors opened, creating an opening into the "garbage disposal bay". The only other opening? Outer space.

I gulped knowing it was now or never. As I hovered towards an over-head pipe, I reached out with both hands and grabbed it tightly. My momentum swung the rest of my body up and around it like a gymnastics display. My feet finished a three hundred and sixty degree spin just in time to give the Queen a hard kick on her backside, giving her exactly the shove necessary to send her flying into the air lock. She wriggled in mid air, kicking, clawing, and screeching as she traveled uncontrollably through the opened doors.

As soon as she was inside, the doors slid shut behind her. I pulled myself over to the air lock release button and waited for the "air tight seal" light to indicate that it was safe to press. But just as soon as that light illuminated, the alien violently slammed face first into the window that was right next to me. She erupted into a desperate and viscous howl before turning her head towards me with my hand still on the button.

I looked her, like a laser eye to eye and said, "enjoy your flight home you bitch!"

And with that I slammed my palm as hard as I could onto the giant yellow button. The air tight doors on the other side of the garbage disposal bay slid open, immediately releasing the air inside. All of the items inside the room shot out of the ship like a cannon, including the Queen, hurdling, into the depths of outer space.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I knew that I had done it. That we had done it. That that nightmare fuel wasn't going to be able to hurt me or my family anymore.

Suddenly, I felt a jolt inside of my stomach. W-was that a kick? I thought to myself. As if answering my question, I felt another one. It was as though my baby was congratulating me for saving him too.

I erupted into laughing and cheering, while crying tears of joy. I couldn't remember the last time that I was this happy.

Better late than never, am I right? Well, if this chapter made any impact on you whatsoever, go ahead and drop a review. Go ahead and tell me whatever you liked or did not like about it. Constructive criticism has always and will always be welcomed. And if you want to know how the story ends, be sure to follow/favorite my profile and/or my channel.

I'll see you guys in the next chapter!