Dark Blood

Chapter 17

The plan was simple. Once they entered chamber, Dhi'ki-de and Tyler would destroy and/or seal all of the entrances, hopefully keeping the rest of the hive at bay and trapping the Queen. Dhi'ki-de would kill one of the Xeno attendants (easy-peasy for him) while Kara, Stephens, and Tyler took out the other three. That, on top of the boys torching the eggs with whatever juice was left in their guns, should pull the Queen out of her enclosure and distract her long enough for Dhi'ki-de to find the sweet spot and take her out. See? Simple enough.

They huddled at the base of the stairs, two on either side of the door. Tyler had dismantled the wall panel and was furiously navigating his iPad, passing firewalls and overriding different controls. He looked up at them and gave a count down on his fingers. Kara's hand tightened on her knife, her heart in her throat.

3... 2... 1

Tyler pushed a button and the four of them stood and ran into the room, the door hissing shut behind them. There was a clunk and a snap; the door was sealed. The four Xeno attendants screamed in unison and charged them, spit flying from their maws. Dhi'ki-de activated his plasmacaster, his sight flickering to life as he locked onto the nearest kiande amedha. With a whirring and a surge of blue light, he sent a blast right into its head, tearing its skull to shreds and spraying gore everywhere. He kept running, seeing only two other tunnels into the room near the ceiling. Vents; one on the far left side of the room and one directly across from the Queen. He took care of the one by the Queen first, scaling the wall and tossing two proximity mines down the tunnel. Each laser grid came to life as the mines attached themselves to the sides of the tunnel. Nothing was passing through there without getting blown up.

While he moved on to the next tunnel, Kara, Stephens, and Tyler had their hands full with their own Xenomorphs. Tyler was keeping the alien as far away from him as he could, using his flame thrower to drive it back before shooting at it, repeating the cycle until the thing dropped or he ran out of juice. Stephens was using his gun to both shoot the Xeno and beat the shit out of it, slamming the butt of the gun into its head and knocking it away when it charged at him.

"Come on, you bitch!" he grunted as he clocked it in the jaw. "Come on!"

The Xeno shrieked and spun around, catching Stephens with its tail and sending him flying. He bounced off the wall and flopped on the ground with the wind knocked out of him, his gun skittering away from him. His vision went fuzzy as he saw the Xeno stalk towards him, its lips pulling back over its teeth. He tried to reach for his gun but the alien got to it first and swatted it away. It grabbed Stephens by the throat and hoisted him up against the wall, hissing in his face as slobber dribbled onto his uniform. As its mouth opened for the final kill, he reached down to his thigh and unclipped his pistol, jamming it right underneath the Xeno's chin. He smiled.

"Got ya."

Four bullets ripped through the Xeno's head, severing its inner mouth and coating the front of his uniform in blood. As the alien collapsed and dropped him, Stephens ripped off his armored vest and jacket, barely getting them off in time before the acid sizzled right through them. He was left in his under armour T-shirt, but though he was vulnerable, at least he was alive. Reclaiming his gun, he saw that Kara and Tyler were still fending off their attackers and the friendly-alien was across the room tossing something into a tunnel. He glanced between the two people, trying to decide who to help first. Seeing that Kara had made it on her own thus far and Tyler was starting to back himself into a corner, Stephens ran to help the other man. She could handle it.

Kara was currently squaring off with her Xeno, each one having dealt blows to the other. Her lip was bleeding, as was a fresh gash on her thigh, shins, and back. The alien dragged its tail limply behind it, Kara having snapped it early into their fight. There was a slash on the top of its head and a few stab wounds on its side that were subtly dripping blood. They circled each other, Kara brandishing her knife in front of her while the Xeno gnashed its teeth and hissed. Despite breathing heavily, Kara was charged up, snarling right back at the Xeno. She was ready to kill this thing.