FicWad

Chapter 1 : Hunt for a secret

Where the mirroring began.....



Year : 2470

Location : Micor sector, Terra Mirror



The rain had been descending for many weeks now, soaking the lands more than it could bare. The trees started rotting while they were still alive; the last remaining animals scavenged restless for something edible.

Alges grew rapidly all throughout the water, cutting off life chances for any other waterplants, and only the fish and amphibians were able to take some joy out of the moist atmosphere, as far as they could live in the growing marshes and their toxic damps.

A white mist hovered over the lands almost continuously; even when it left, the sight was still somber and sad. No one knew what had happened to make this once so beautiful planet go to waste. Now, all the humans had left, while the eco system slowly decayed.

They said it was an unbalance in the natural balance. They said it could be expected with a planet that was originally not inhabitable, as with any terraforming project. They off course did not say it just was cheaper to work on New Eden than repair any lost eco system.

Drops came through the soaky walls of the cave. Nothing but a few rocks and wet earth made the entrance, which gave free way still to a lower region, a maze network of caves.

The little frog, sitting in the entrance did not see the snake approaching until it was almost too late. When he finally saw the movement of the tongue, he tried to hop to safety, but was scooped away in midair.

He landed a good meter away; it was not the snake that had caught him. He was dazzled for a moment then jumped away in the direction of the cave entrance.

The snake curled up, having forgotten about her prey completely as she slithered her tongue at the to creatures she 'saw' moving through the cave. Exposing her teeth still paid not a single bit of response to her alarms.

One of the yautja looked down at the creature and stamped it's foot on the snake's head two times, before rubbing it flat with the sole of his boot. The hiss of the snake was replaced by the clattering of mandibles.

The other yautja looked around in annoyance. They were here for a reason, not to mess around. The older one had already been required to drag the young one away from a little game with the small group of soldiers a while back, who were getting soaked in their wrecked vessel waiting for rescue to come.

They both uncloaked now, as there was nothing to hide from anymore. The oldest one was battleworn, a true survivor who could have been an elder with the number of kills he had made . . . if it had been honorable kills.
The younger one was also covered with scars, but these were not the scars of battles. His scars seemed to come from rock, teeth of animals larger than him and burning wounds. His skin was unusually bright for a yautja, indicating he did not come from a normal clan. Anyone with color vision in his helmet could see that.

The older one pushed a few buttons on his gauntlet and made a rough scan of the area. Nothing appeared on the heatscreen, but they knew it had to be here, so they descended deeper. After a few kilometers, there was finally an echo coming back, showing the location of the old human bunker.

But when they reached an underground river, a second echo returned. The older one nearly pushed the unblooded pursuer the water. The young one growled, but did as he was told and walked to the indicated place. There he bend down, his mask nearly touching the waves on the surface.

He pulled out what seemed to be white frunchies and wires in rags; at a closer look it was or'teia nan'kunde, a fake lifeform created by the human species.

Karga'te dropped the android somewhere else and reached down again, but found nothing more. He was about to step out of the river, but the older one signalled him to follow the water downstream.

In annoyance he growled, but he complied nonetheless. Tehen'rei probably was after the name of being the one who had found the eggs. Even in an order of outcasts a good reputation can mean something. There was not much chance he would find anything down the river, as the second or'teia nan'kunde was not found yet. That one was probably at the bunker with the eggs.

While the banned one continued down the river, the outcast soon reached the bunker. A single plasma shot was enough to open the doors.

Hidden safely from any scanning out of the stratosphere was a stone room, filled with cold from a generator so old it gave of no sort of radio signal.

All he had to do now was find what he was looking for and leave. Somewhere had to be a container; a mini cryogenic tube or something. There were some old clothes, a boot, remnants of an very old meal, but no cryogenic container. Then he noted a door half under the dirt and barely recognizable. A very thin draft was under the door, indicating it's presence.

He pushed it open, having a sense that he should not make too much noise. The second room was the same as the first, only colder and with earth walls. He could see his own hands, but nothing beyond. Moving on touched, he continued all over the room, but found nothing.

A curse was on the tip of his tusks, but he restrained himself. Someone of his age was too smart to make unneeded sound in a surrounding that he could not see. Suddenly he got an idea. Falling to his knee's quietly, he probed the ground. At one spot, the floor was softer than it should be, indicating a quik hole being being made and closed there. With his hands he started to dig, and soon felt something hard in the dirt. He removed the dirt from the sides and pulled the container out of the ground.

With a smirk in yautja style he stood up, feeling quite satisfied with his find. It was still hard to see, but inside the temperature was indeed warmer, and five round shapes were vaguely visible. He was about to put the container under his arm and leave, when his thumb felt something odd.

He probed the container and found a huge hole on the other side. The cold streamed in and he saw the contrast now : there were no eggs, only egg holders. He started to grow nervous for several reason : something had removed the eggs and buried the container again, and 2 : the something appeared to have used acid to make a hole in the container.

For a few more moments he stood there, listening. Then he speeded to the door, but he never reached it. His roar echod through the halls, to silence ever after.

The other did not hear it. The river had lowered and was going underground for a while, muting the roar to the ears of the young one. When surfacing again, there was yet another cave. He rattled in disgust; the water was cold and smelled awful. He felt like he had just been dumped with another stupid job, pretty much as had been the case in his eta day's. But he couldn't just go back. He would go on and hope he was outside before his companion took off with the ship.

He functioned sorta like the scapegoat of his clan, because he was the only one who had never been officially declared on outcast. With his old clan, no one was declared an outcast without his full knowing of it, and presence during the verdict. Since Karga'te had never returned to the colony, there had never been a trial. Sometimes he wished he had done so, those of his present day clan mocked him for being afraid of words.

Another lowering followed, he muttered a curse, and went underwater for the fourth time already. Again he missed a cry by doing so, this time however, it was a strange wailing sound, an unknown voice calling for the troops.

This time, the waters grew stronger than normal as several nasty turns were made, slamming the yautja against the tunnel walls several time, until he could no longer control where he was going. For a second, he considered letting go. To die with the last bit of honor he had : to kill himself as was required of an outcast. But the next moment his inner anger flamed up again. He cared not for honor. Why die for it without anyone knowing about it? His life belonged to him, he was the one to choose it's Path, not some stupid code.

The next turn of the river threatened to slam him against another wall, but he braced himself and kicked off, turning with the water. At the next open air he saw, he made it to the surface, grabbed the shore rocks and pulled himself free from the deadly grip of the river.

Vengeance. As if the others would let him use it for that.
But he owed them no allegiance, and had they not been stronger than him, no being in the universe would have made a squeak if he had killed them. He had plans to leave soon.

The cave he was in was large and single chambered, with only one exit. As the stinking water was not very inviting, he decided to leave through that exit. The hole was a few meters above the ground, but he could jump higher than that. The crawling on hands and feet was another thing, as he was a nearly fullgrown yautja.

But soon he felt the draft increase, telling him he was nearly outside. Then he would head for the ship like the wind and get off this blasted planet. He only needed his weapon, his target was on their path...

A screeching sounded up as he jumped out of the hole and into the open. Looking down, he saw the remnants of another android, and the thing his boot had slipped on, creating the noise : a cryo container. Then he saw another, and a third, all in pieces.

In his old clan, the young ones learned very soon to recognize the tactics of the kainde amedha, and he saw their work here. On instinct, he looked around, but no black dead was visible.

Looking at the androids again, he wondered why so many were here. Could these three all by accident have fallen in the water? Or perhaps they went that way on intention. In that case the perhaps wanted to bury the container and would have had tools for that.... which would explain the narrow hole he had just gone through ... what had driven them outside again? Probably the hardmeat, however they had gotten here.

He realized that he was standing in the same place as the fake life had been destroyed. Just in time he turned around to fire his plasma caster at the hardmeat. The monster shrieked, as it had moved out of the way; now missing a piece of it's head. It shivered once, then left life.

Without further pondering Karga'te scooped the container under his arm and raced towards the ship. There were kainde amedha here and he was in no need for a confrontation with them.

Soon he heard the sound of pursuers. The drone had not come alone. Two more came, and one runner with a few facehuggers on it's back. The yautja was good at both speeding and long distance racing, but in these marsh lands the hardmeat with their thin legs had the advantage. He turned around twice, giving himself a mental pad on the shoulder as he took out the runner and it's cargo with that. The runner died, and the facehuggers got stuck in the dirt.

The ship was luckily not so far. The primal hunt had learned him to be a good judge of directions, probably the only thing saving his life in this situation.

Drones were in general stupid, so he stopped and took his h'sai-de out. His attackers did not grow suspicious or even stop, they just kept running like stupid animals. Karga'te raised the sword, but did not let them come close. The handle was almost as flat as the blade, and worked excellent as weight point when he tossed it through the air like one would use a shuriken. This required enormous strenght, but that and the experience he had. In amusement he watched as the blade cut through the first drone's head just slightly at a crucial point, killing it. Problem was that even his specially made h'sai-de did not return like a shuriken. That was no issue though. He put down the container and picked up a rock. The second drone was nearby and hit so hard by the rock it slipped of the rock it was currently and fell sidewards in the pulling mud. Karga'te leaped past him to retrieve his h'sai-de.

Before the drone was well out of the marshes grip, it lost it's neck. The clattering laughter of the yautja was heard as he picked up the container again. One thing was for sure, he was not banned for being a weakling.

A terrible screech suddenly sounded up all around him. He turned and saw the tridented corona of a praetorian rise from the blur of the mists. He considered. The ship was only a few meters away, but it had to be opened, started up and ..... by that time the kainde amedha would have gotten to him. Innerly cursing at himself again, he stopped to put down the containers once more. He hated unwanted challenges, especially if they could easily cost his life. The praetorian would probably not be tricked into falling in the quicksands.

In a split second, the heat suddenly rose, so fast that he couldn't see for a moment as his eyes adapted slower. The he recognized the rising of a plasma bomb, and threw himself to the ground on instinct.

For a few seconds it was silent, then the drappy marshes were lifted in the air by the draft of the explosion. While the tremendous force pushed that close to the ground deeper in the water, it lifted all that was above 1 meter in the air. The praetorian was swept a good 10 meters further, even the ship moved a couple of inches.

Then the air stilled and all the mud and alges came down, making ship, praetorian and yautja unrecognizable piles of dirt. Though out of range of the actual explosion 'line', everything was wrecked more than before.

Karga'te got up first, and just realized he had no idea where the container was. He could not see it in any case. Had this planet been somewhere around the tropical heat level, then perhaps, but it was useless now. There was an angry praetorian which he could not see crawling in his direction with an attitude of hell and for some mysterious reason Tehen'rei had now blown himself to smithereens.

He wiped the dirt of his mask to get a better view, only to stare in the fanged mouth of the praetorian. Up so close there was no mistake in recognizing the heated mouth from the background. Karga'te decided this was the right time to waste his not-acid proof ki'cti-pa.

He truck them upwards while keeping his h'sai-de ready for an attack straight after that, but the praetorian was faster. Only the side of it's head was hit, causing enough blood to spill over his wrist blades for them to melt away nonetheless.
The next moment the monster's tail pierced through his shoulder. He was used to pain, but was so irritated about this ending of his life, that he roared out anyway.

Then something strange happened. A wailling sound was coming from the distance, and the praetorian stopped a moment with killing the yautja to move it's foot! Karga'te twisted his arm in a painful way and took his chance to ram the h'sai-de through the praetorian's skull. Again the kainde amedha was faster, but this time he made a huge gash in it's troat. Acidic blood spilled out over the yautja causing the skin of his back to melt away, but then his bloodnullified it. As the praetorian started stumbling, it's tail pulled back and Karga'te got free.

The hardmeat staggered, obviously having too little blood coming to it's huge brain and therefore losing sense of anything. Now Karga'te saw what it had moved it's foot for : a single, intact egg that seemed very much like a hardmeat egg but was smaller and smelled oddly like human. A meter further was the container, crushed against a rock in the draft pressure. Two eggs were inside, smattered, the fourth was invisible.

Without further thought he picked up the one egg and moved towards the ship as fast as he could. Tehen'rei was clearly dead....not that he would have waited for him. It took him exactly 2 minutes to get everything started up and figure out how the control panel worked. In a new cryo container was a single hybrid egg being carried away from the planet by a hunter who was no hunter anymore.

Karga'te never looked out of the window, never saw the misshaped being arive and watch the ship leave in agony. He never saw the praetorian rise up again with newfound strenght and struggle towards the container, and the one egg hidden in the mud; as if intending all to happen.

This egg opened, and from under the mud one pale little face hugger came with extremely long fingers. It jumped at the praetorian and attached to gash on the troat, pushing the incubation pipe in the neck of the xenomorph while releasing the virus that would add an extra gen to the DNA of the host.

Then the multitoned cry of the praetorian rose up, echoing through the woods; pain and surprise.

It startled the humans in their tent, though they could not nearly understand it's meaning.
"What was that?" one asked with a shivering voice.
The other one joked it off :"Well, the vegetation started mutating and there are plant-frog hybrids of tremendous sizes waiting to eat us."
"Oh how funny. See me laughing? Look at me laughing."
After a few more minutes of silence and tensed listening, he said "That wasn't a frog."
"Yeah? Then what? Alien lifeforms? This planet is inhabitable by nature. There's nothing here but veggies. For that part, we are in a childhood nightmare about spinach."
All four of them laughed, trying not to see the empty sleeping bags of their missing friends.
Then, they were silent too.