Predator: Huntress - Alpha

Chapter 6

Jarak's claws clicked quietly against the control console as he set the ship's coordinates back to Ojibwe. Pulling up the radar, he set the constant sweep to a much wider circumference. If anyone or anything came near the ship, he would be alerted. It was a setting he had never activated before, but with the woman and child on board his ship, Jarak would make the exception.

Turning away from the controls, he stood up and paused. Looking across the short bridge into the ship's deck, he watched the two females sleep soundly. Laying on her back, the fat human baby slept with both arms up and her fists balled on either side of her head. Watching her stomach move up and down as she breathed, Jarak could tell that the child was sleeping deeply--just like her mother. Silently, Jarak took another step forward, clicking the datapad on his gauntlet and lowering the ship's lights until it was nearly pitch black. Jarak watched as the woman's brow relaxed from its frown and her breathing deepen. Using her extended arm as a cushion, the woman held onto the rifle's strap at the far end of the bed while her other hand lay protectively on the child's chest.

Out of curiosity, Jarak reached for his mask attached to his belt and lifted it to his face. Peering through the mask's eyeholes, he confirmed what he witnessed earlier on the planet. Unlike a normal human, this woman shined bright like a white star under his thermal readouts. Glancing at the child, he scanned her and found her readouts pulse normally with reds and yellows. She was unlike her mother.

Having received an alert of a new outbreak of xenomorphs, Jarak had gone to that planet to hunt down a juvenile xenomorph queen, he was not expecting to find a known open file. He had been climbing the domed outside of the air filtration building when he looked down to see the bright star pass him. Changing the display in his mask, Jarak watched the woman move with tactical grace and precision across the colony. Changing course, he followed her taking in every detail of her until he could finally remember why the heavily modified human intrigued him so, there was an incomplete file sitting in Ojibwe's records about this type of woman. Twenty women, to be exact, all modified down to their bones and ligaments, all highly skilled in combat. Pulling up the record as he followed her to the rectangular dormitory building Jarak had read the mostly empty file and stopped at the instructions at the bottom: apprehend at all cost.

Reading the file's limited data as he pursued her, Jarak could see her shoulders stiffen and realized with satisfaction the reports were true about her. Looking over her shoulder, bright purple inhuman eyes shined as she scanned her surroundings. She knew she was being watched. Forgetting completely about his initial mission, Jarak followed the woman with growing interest. Getting closer to her, Jarak had blinked in surprise as he realized there was something beneath the alien carapace she kept strapped to her chest. Moments later, the child's cries not only confirmed his assumption, but the child eventually gave him the opportunity he needed to redirect the woman back to him. For nearly forty-eight hours, he had followed her and watched. He watched her hide and scan the terrain as she slowly made her way towards a particular building. Biding his time, he waited until she made her move.

Coming up behind her just as she accessed the building's ladder, he paused at the chittering sounds echoing in the darkness. Long black cylindrical heads appeared over the roof's edge, and the woman paused. With slow turns of their heads, the xenomorphs communicated in silent hisses with one another as the woman accessed her worsening odds from above and below. Letting the xenomorph pass him in the darkness, Jarak looked up at the woman's expression. For a brief second, he could see the maternal fear in her eyes shine past the purple and white circuitry in her eyes before cold resolve engulfed it. She would make it out of this situation, he thought, but he saw no reason to risk her nor the screaming child's safety. Taking one step forward, Jarak grabbed the barbed black tail of the alien and yanked it back until it was pulled off its feet and forced to follow its attacker's motion as he swung it around. Hitting the other side of the wall with a shrieking screech, the xenomorph flailed and scrambled its limbs to find purchase on the ground so it could attack, but Jarak activated his cannon blaster. As he shot the remaining xenomorphs, he watched as the woman abandoned her mission of getting in the infested building and run off into the desert.