Cloaked

Triumph and Perfidy

Scai'k POV

Hidden behind a clump of thick trees, I waited stiller than a stone in a desert. My heart pounded in anticipation.

I had been on plenty of hunts since my blooding. When a Youngblood, or a young Yautja,  makes his first kill, he marks himself with his victim's blood in a rite of passage, and he becomes a Blooded warrior. Years ago, I killed my first xenomorph and hung the trophy in my room. Whenever I began to feel insufficient as a warrior, I would run my hand over that scar and remember the bravery and fight it took for me to bring drown that kiande amedha as such a young warrior. That was the first instance of pride I can remember - my family was so proud of me, and the look on my mother's face of pure, radiant joy still lived in my brain.

I squeezed my fist at the memeory of my mother. There was no option for me aside from completing this mission. Not only would I have no way to return to my clan and prove my mother's innocence, but I would fail Juno. The little human needed me to return home, and if I died or was unable to fix the ship or complete my mission in time, she would be stranded with me or worse - with Maku. Based on his earlier exposition of character with her, I would not put it past him to blast her with his plasma-caster and then take off.  All the more reason it was imperative for me to be successful. Failure was not an option for me or for Juno.

The female stood in the clearing, her knees slightly bent in anticipation to flee. Her skin was paler than usual and her eyes the size of green moonbeams. My biomask read her biometrics and her heart was atypically high and breathing shallow. I scanned the area around her and picked up movement.

My biomask confirmed that the queen kiande amedha was approaching. The heat signature showed a defined image of a bug-like creature whose kind I had hunted and extirpated many times before - only, this one was much, much larger. The creature's tail flicked back and forth as it approached its human prey, and I readied my weapons to attack. The beast was too deep into the brush for a solid hit, but once it leapt for Juno I could make a fatal attack in the clearing. 

"Maku," I breathed. The male was nowhere to be seen: He undoubtably ran off at the sight of the queen like a Youngblood. "Shit," I growled nearly silently, grinding my teeth together. I was prepared to fight without my Yautja companion, however, and quickly regained composure as I locked in on the xenomoph creeping toward my human. I would have to make the kill without him, which I did not expect to be any different with or without his presence based on the condition of his armor.

I silently counted down as the xenomorph crawled through the trees. All was going according to plan and in moments it would be close enough to shoot. Closer, I projected my thoughts at the creature. Just a little bit closer.

In a split second, I focused in on the round body of the xenomorph and shot my plasma-caster as it leapt from the trees directly at Juno. The blast collided with the beast midair, and it roared in anguish. Juno screamed and sprinted into the tree cover, out of my sight. A twinge of relief washed over me that I had hit my target in time. The queen's talons were inches away from Juno when the blast pushed it backward; otherwise, it may have hit her with a deadly amount of force.

The creature looked much different than the smaller xenomorphs I had fought. It had the usual black talons and deadly barbed tail, but it had a thicker, crownlike bone structure on its head, which was the defining feature that would prove to my clan that I killed a queen. It writhed on the ground, its acidic, green blood oozing into the soil next to it. It was slightly injured from such a precise blast, but within heartbeats, it pulled itself to its feet and hissed in my direction. Evidently, the queen would no go down as easily as the rest of its kind. A discreet smile crept behind my biomask as I watched the beast whirl and hiss as it searched for the origin of the blast. I enjoyed the process of the hunt, and despite the pressure of returning to my clan and honoring my promise to Juno, I felt a passionate sense of liberation and zeal in a battle, and part of me looked forward to continuing my clash with the kiande amedha.