[AVP] - Aliens vs. Predator

by Marc Cerasini - (ebook by Undead)

  But Lex was faster.

  She rose and stumbled forward, slamming her body against the last support beam. The shock of the blow rattled her teeth and bruised a rib, but Lex heard a satisfying crack as the final leg tore free of the ice. Immediately, the huge iron vat slid the rest of the way down the slope and over the edge of the cliff, tumbling toward the harbor far below.

  The long chain snapped taut, and with a jerk the Queen was snatched away at the very moment of her kill. Dragged through the snow, she kicked and clawed helplessly as she was pulled toward the icebound harbor.

  The separator bounced end over end and struck the thick pack ice. Under the weight of the cast-iron vat, the ice cracked—but did not shatter. The roaring Alien was dragged along, but she came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the cliff—right in front of Lex.

  Lex watched desperately as a spiderweb of cracks spread outward from the vat, but still the separator did not sink.

  Then the Queen struggled to rise, and Lex knew she was doomed.

  Suddenly an earsplitting crack echoed up from below, and with a groaning sound the frozen sheet caved in under the three-ton separator. With a splash the vat slipped through the hole and into the bay.

  Once again the chain was pulled tight and the Alien Queen was yanked, wailing, toward the widening gap. Tittering and slobbering, the creature clawed at the ice, but to no avail. Limbs thrashing, wailing in protest, with hot gore gushing from the wound in her throat, the monster was sucked into the harbor, where she was swallowed by the cold ocean depths, the heavy separator as her anchor.

  As the Alien Queen sank, Lex rose and hurried to Scar’s side.

  Sobbing, she fell to her knees in the bloody snow, cradling the dying Predator’s head in her arms. His body broken, the Predator seemed resigned to his fate.

  As Lex held him, Scar reached up a battered claw and gently traced the thunderbolt scar on her forehead with the tip of his finger. Using a distorted version of Lex’s own voice, the Predator spoke.

  “The enemy of my enemy…”

  “…is my friend,” said Lex.

  Then the Predator shuddered once, and died.

  As Lex pressed his face to her breast, a strange wind blew. Something large was passing over their heads. The Predator spacecraft shimmered into visibility, energy crackling across its hull. It hovered over Lex and the fallen warrior, engines humming.

  As the shadow of the starship fell over her, Lex looked up. A few feet away, on a low ice shelf overlooking the battleground, a dozen Predators winked into existence before her eyes. Then multiple shadows cast from nowhere played over Lex. With a crackle of strange energies, more Predators became visible.

  In a moment they pressed in to surround Lex.

  Bowing low, they offered their respects to the lifeless Predator, then they lifted his corpse and carried him toward a long ramp that lowered silently out of the belly of the spaceship.

  Lex fumbled at her belt for a weapon but came up empty—her club was gone, lost in the fight. She crouched in a martial arts fighting stance, fists raised and ready to lash out. Lex was willing to take them all on if she had to. For a long moment there was a tense standoff.

  Stepping in front of her, a tall Predator with long, drooping dreadlocks and ornate, jewel-studded armor considered her through blank eye slits. Slowly, the creature lifted its hand and traced the scar on Lex’s forehead, then pointed to the same symbol burned into its own mask.

  Lex’s eyes darted to the others. All of them bore the same distinctive mark.

  The Predator elder nodded once, then presented Lex with his heavy spear. As she grasped the object in her hands, the inhuman hunters bowed their heads in a gesture of respect.

  Then the elder turned his back on the woman and winked to invisibility. Lex traced his retreating footsteps, along with the prints of the others, as they marched through the snow to the starship.

  The ramp silently closed and the craft’s main thrusters roared. Saint Elmo’s fire danced across its metallic surface and the ship vanished, though Lex could still hear its roar and feel the hum of its engines rumbling in her chest. Finally, in a blast of snow and ice, the spacecraft was gone.

  Drenched in blood—human, Alien and Predator—and wreathed by bruises, Lex watched it go. In her own gesture of respect, she touched the tribal scar that branded her forehead. Finally, she lowered the spear and reached into her pocket.

  Lex gazed at Sebastian’s rusty Pepsi cap for a long moment. Then she turned her eyes skyward once more, where a break in the clouds revealed a brilliant full moon hanging low in the Antarctic sky. Watching the clouds drift across the lunar surface, Lex recalled Sebastian’s words, and she spoke them in a voice tinged with awe and sadness.

  “Hunter’s Moon.”

  EPILOGUE

  The Predator Starship, Deep Space

  His kin had laid him in a place of honor, at the base of the statue of their savage thunder god. His faceplate was off, the scar on his forehead a dark stain on his pallid flesh.

  The funeral ceremony was over and the other clan members had filed out to enter their individual cryostasis tubes, where they would hibernate during the long voyage back to their home world.

  Alone now, in a chamber heavy with incense, Scar’s corpse twitched.

  Suddenly the gray flesh below his dead heart bulged and stretched as if some creature was trapped inside his body, fighting to break free….

  Scanning, formatting and basic

  proofing by Undead.