Boarded

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In the distant year of 2185 man kind has reached past the stars, into the ever expanding universe searching......we found nothing, but they found us and we were caught in the crossfire of their wars, and whoever won , we lose
From the diary of Commander torch

The refugee ship HMS Event horizon exited its jump point 300 light years off course, after a 10 month transit through space this was just another problem in the long line of fuck ups that this whole trip was turning out to be

The ship carried over 98 armed marines and 15 refugees who had barely escaped the civil war on echo-3, a backwater planet that nobody really cared about, they were low on fuel, water, food and they were even starting to run out of air, the Android crew projected an estimated survival rate of 20% for the next week, so about 22 of them would live until the air gave out a month later, the ship was doomed

Among these survivors was a child, she was the only passenger that was below 20 years old being a child of only 6, she was alone, her parents had died a a month before she had been loaded onto a shuttle that was supposed to take them all to a colony

She had lost hope they would get there when she had spent her sixth birthday alone in the small room all of the refugees shared, only separated by cloth and blankets strung across the room

Young Tilly did know any of her shipmates that well, the closest things she had to friends was a young couple that let her sleep with them on extremely cold nights, their names were Mara and ace, they were kind and fed her whatever they didn't eat, unfortunately Ace and Mara had their own problems like everyone else, so Tilly only saw them in the evenings

Right now she is sitting in her little corner looking at the one item she had to remind her of home, it was a silver medallion with a carved creature on one side and an odd symbol on the other, her mother had called it an owl, it was ancient species of bird that was apparently on the planet humans had come from, a strange planet called earth

Tilly of course had never been there nor had anyone in her family but the medallion was still just as beautiful, she clutched the metal necklace and cried as she did every time she thought of her mommy and daddy

This heat breaking scene however was interrupted by the lights dimming before completely going out one by one, a tremor shot through the ship, the inertia compensation usually made anything like that nonexistent meaning something had gone very very wrong

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[any text within theses symbols means the text is being spoken in the yautjia language, since these are different species they don't understand each other]

A scout ship was sent immediately to recon the craft that had jumped into the center of the clans territory, the dark wind clan were somewhat familiar with the species that infested the craft, a young species that had only recently discovered faster then light travel, despite their primitiveness they had proven on multiple occasions to be worth prey

At least that's what the younger group leader had been told, the elite hunter that accompanied them seemed to agree as he had prepared them for a fight

"[these primitive apes, have you hunted them before?]"

The elite looked up from his smart disk and nodded

"[I have, maybe 5 seasons ago now, one of them killed another elite on its own, it proved itself a worthy foe and a fine trophy]"

He patted the skull he wore on his belt
"[although not all of them are as skilled or strong, it is rare that one of them proves worthy but it is not impossible]"

The younger leader nods, his group were mostly unblooded and hadn't undergone a hunt of the serpents to gain their adulthood

"[I doubt these humans will be as worth as the one you fought, their ship looks to be in poor shape]"

Commented one of the other youngsters, reviving a nod from his peers

"[none the less young ones, prepare yourselves]"

They took his advice as they boarded the ship, the elite would supervise the group as they hunted through the ship, perhaps bagging a few trophies if he wanted to

The young leader fired a single shot at the human ship, it wasn't meant to kill anything or even damage the ship, the blast spread throughout the ship cutting powers to most systems and sections of the ship before they boarded

The lined themselves up with the primitive airlock and connected

The young group each put on their masks while the elder already had his own on, once they were all ready the moved themselves to the human ship cloaking themselves, becomes invisible to their prey

They split up

The young leader walked down a hallway his thermal vision actively scanning for prey, fortunately anything with a heat signature stuck out because the rest of the ship was freezing

He saw at least 3 signatures nearby, from what he could see they each carried projectile weapons that meant they would be honorable kills that could defend themselves if they were good enough

But they weren't good Enough, this was proven as the young leader slaughtered them with ease,cutting the first ones then killings he other two with a single spear as the stood back to back impaling them both

————

Tilly was terrified when she heard the gunshots echo all around the ship, almost always shortly followed by a scream

The child didn't want to die, not like her parents who had been shot down by a firing squad

When footsteps began to echo nearby she tried to hide, she put her blanket over her head as tears ran down her face.....was this it? Is this how she would die?

"Hey kiddo, are you there?"

Mara

Tilly peaked to see the tan skinned women holding a rifle and reaching her hand to the girl

"Come wit's me if you want to live"
Tilly didn't think for a second as she took the hand

"Where's Ace?"

Tilly whispers afraid to make too much noise, but Mara didn't answer her question right away because she was searching the shadows around them for anything

"I don't know...but he'd better get here soon"

She held maras hand as they walked through the pitch black hallways of the ship, nothing was going to stop Mara in her serve for ace

"Over here"
The whispers caught both Mara and tilly off guard, it sounded like one of the marines

"Over here"

The voice came from a different direction this time, Mara raised her gun aiming down the hallway her flashlight shining

"Turn around"

Mara spun around her light traveling with the barrel of her gun

"Come our whoev-"

He words were cut short as camd from the darkness behind her, twin blades ripping through her back and coming out of the front of her chest

The darkness lifted her up above itself letting her bleed
"Anytime "

Came the same whisper, the whisper from the dark

It sounded like maras own spouse, Ace

(1227 words, this took about 2 hours to write and I really really enjoyed writing it, I hope you did to

Some warnings this will contain adult language, blood and gore and various screwed up shit that is the norm in the predator universe

Until next time please enjoy this, I know I have, it's simply delightful

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