Cloaked

Alone in Darkness

Juno POV

Clicking.

That's all I could hear within the darkness.

I was walled-in on all sides in utter darkness. The last thing I remember before waking up on the cold, smooth floor beneath me was sprinting into the woods after Scai'k shot the xenomorph, fear pulsating through my entire self. I remember gasping for breath and eventually stopping, the sounds of Scai'k's battle in the distance, then a large hand wrapped around my mouth and a sharp needle in my neck before everything went black, and I woke up again here.

My breath was shallow and shaky. I gently called out.

"Hello?"

After a few heartbeats and no response, I lifted a fist and pounded on the wall in front of me, hard. I was in some sort of box, almost tall enough for me to stand upright and wide enough I could sit with my legs extended, but otherwise, I was crammed in.

My fists collided with the wall repeatedly as I yelled out.

"Let me out!", I yelped, pushing my bodyweight against the wall in a feeble attempt to knock it over. After a few seconds, the clicking faded away and my cage began to shake. I scrambled backwards and hugged my body in tight as a small hole opened in the top and a ray of precious light shined through.

I jumped up and peered through the hole, falling backwards when a tube was roughly pushed through it. The tube collided with my cheek and pushed me down. My eyes stayed glued to the tube as it stopped about halfway down the cage, frozen. For over a minute, I watched the tube, a thousand sceneries playing out in my head. Who did this to me? Was Scai'k okay? Was Scai'k involved in this?

My questions were abruptly interrupted when the tube began shaking and a thick green gas began oozing out of the tip. I gasped, coughing as the gas penetrated my lungs with a horrid sting. Struggling to circulate oxygen, I shakily put my hand over the tip to prevent more gas from seeping out, but the concentrated substance burned the soft skin in my palms as it made contact. I stumbled around the cage, choking and banging the walls as my eyes phased in and out of blackness. Without enough oxygen, I felt myself slipping into oblivion.

The floor seemed to rise to greet my body as I collided with the ground and lost consciousness.

Scai'k POV

"MAKU!" I screamed at the night, shooting my plasmacaster at the nearest tree. Once I got my hands on that filthy, lying piece of shit I was going to tear him to pieces in the slowest way possible.

After Juno's disappearance, I searched all night for the human. I looked for heat signatures, scent patterns, prints, and found absolutely nothing until midway through the next day when I discovered signs of a Yautjan ship that had taken off. Distinct burn patterns unique to my kind's ships in the vegetation were tell-tale signs of a fellow Yautja. That left one option – Maku.

I hurled my biomask onto the ground and fell to my knees. As much as that human annoyed me, I felt a sense of responsibility and duty to her after all we had been through. In a way, I had begun to see myself as a protector over the helpless creature.

Yautja rarely owned pets. Some had servants, but it was rare among my clan. However, I was familiar with the idea enough to associate my feelings toward Juno with those of my friends who owned animals. I rescued her from imminent death and thus felt responsible for her care and safety, to an extent. How could I manage to kill a xenomorph queen in a few days yet not manage to keep a mere human under my watch?

My mind raced as a weighted my options. I was free to return home, having killed the queen kiande amedha; however, if I left now, my only lead to recovering Juno would go cold, and there was a chance I might never see her again. I growled and cursed, throwing up my hands.  I sensed Maku was up to something devious from the beginning. I knew he was lying about his clan. I saw the way he eyed Juno like a piece of meat and spoke of her. Yet I was weak and blind to the extensive evidence in front of me, and I was so stupid as to trust him to accompany us and even watch over Juno while I fought the xenomorph. It was my fault Juno was gone, but I had absolutely no idea where she could be. She was somewhere out in the universe, alone and scared, and there was nothing I could do about it.

In painful agitation, I thought of my mother. The last I had seen her, she was buckled over, unconscious, after being whipped and humiliated by my father for allegedly going to bed with another male. I clenched in fists in frustration. I could not choose a human over my own mother. Still... Juno was weak and vulnerability compared to a Yautja, and I knew she would stand no chance against one like Maku in a fight. I pounded my fist into my thigh in rage, attempting to cast out my thoughts of Juno. There was only one option for me – to return to my mother. It was because of her than I had been exiled, and it was my responsibility as her pup to defend her. However, I still wished to rescue Juno, and growled in anger at myself for being so careless.

I came to the conclusion that I would return home with the Xenomorph skull and clear my mother's allegations. Once my honor was restored, my mother was safe, and my father accepted both of us back into his family, perhaps then I could search for the human. For now, with my ship fixed and trophy won, I had finally usurped the burden placed upon me for so long, and I could return back to my old life and normalcy.

Deep in chest, however, I knew that no matter how much I tried to be pleased with myself or think about my old life, I would never be able to cast out the fealty that lived in my heart for that stupid human.

I trekked back toward my ship for the remainder of the day, a dark burden nagging at my heels. Was I abandoning Juno, or was I saving my mother?