Xenomorph, Emotion or Instinct

Chapter 16: The Alien Legacy

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Looking at the image the girls were in pure awe of the message, the engraving had an image of tall humanoid things finding an ancient birthing ground. It showed them taking something from this ground and taking it across the galaxy; they imprisoned it here when it unleashed a deadly outbreak. Zathena then told Leala; look… there… Leala looked and the outbreak showed hundreds of dark insect-like creatures massacring these humanoids, then in the final image it showed the creatures sealing this chamber and crystallising what they found. Venturing further into the spaceship the pair of inquisitive xenos found early versions of the creatures that the humanoids had captured from the original source. They looked almost identical to Zathena except they had a pointier head and smaller teeth; they also lacked the sharp tail and claw spikes on both Leala and Zathena. Lastly these creatures were barely six foot from head to tail; Zathena then realised precisely what these things were, they were the early stages of xenomorph evolution. Meaning that the crystallised creature must have been the original Queen, Zathena told Leala; the big rock in the middle of this hive, come on…

Returning to the crystal Leala and Zathena stood in awe of it; Leala moved her claw close to the crystal and touched it. Suddenly a burning feeling swarmed through Leala causing her to convulse and shake, she began screeching and screamed in agony. Zathena held her tightly and witnessed her hand smoking, eventually the pain stopped and Leala got back up; Leala then looked to her hand and it had turned very dark red, bordering on maroon in colour. Zathena then asked; what happened? How did your, your hand turn? Leala just growled still recovering from the intense pain; then Zathena touched the crystal and received no such pain or punishment. She moved her hand into the crystal; it had a very thick gel texture on her hand, and also seemed to be glowing where Zathena's hand was positioned. She forced her hand further into it and the whole crystal started glowing deep blue, the light was blinding and then Zathena's hand made physical contact with the Queen.

A small electric shock then ran down Zathena and she retracted her hand; the crystal then fell apart and flooded the ground with thick blue gel. Then the two girls saw her, a giant Queen; beginning to rise out from the ground the Queen was massive. She wasn't just a regular Queen though; she was around twice the normal size, she had four hands and a seven spike crest above her head. Her skin then reacted with the immediate atmosphere and turned pale white; she stood at her full forty foot height and peered down at Zathena and Leala. Without reason she smacked Zathena away from her, she crashed into a wall and fell down completely immobilised by this Queen. Leala attempted to retaliate but was grabbed at her tail and thrown across the chamber, she too smashed into a wall, then she fell to the ground badly injured and screeching in absolute shock from the impact. The Queen then left the chamber most likely to find a hive spot; slowly the two girls regained their strength but were severely weakened by the ordeal.

The girls managed to find their way out of the maze of tunnels, as they made their way back to the community they were horrified by what they saw. It was Weyland Yutani; they'd followed Arran and his lovers by getting tipped off on their hiding place. There were two ships outside the cave entrance and everyone inside was being killed or taken prisoner, among them Zathena spotted Arran being beckoned along with everyone else the company felt were important. Zathena and Leala ran after him, they started striking down and killing the Weyland troops but soon they too were subdued and tranquillised. Whether or not they wanted to they were going on this spaceship. Arran, Zathena and Leala were put in a cell and left to ponder what had happened, they assumed they were safe in that refugee camp but apparently not. Then once the ships had left the atmosphere they seemed to be heading back to BG-367, or at least that's what they'd been told.