David Bischoff - Aliens Vs Predator 02 - Hunter's Planet

PROLOGUE

Dai'k-dte sa-de nav'gkon dtainaun bpide.

"The fight begun would not end until the end."

Tarei'hasan, shit.

Nat'ka'pu illustrated how silly the old yautja saying was by feinting to

the left, then slipping around the sparring spear thrust out by his opponent.

With astonishing speed the Leader followed through with a lightning lunge,

grasping the edge of the student's mask and ripping it off his face, shearing

off a couple of tightly bound ringlets of hair in the process. Yellow eyes

blazed with surprise. Mandibles clicked with shame.

The student yawked with displeasure, attempting to slap Nat'ka'pu back with

the blunt side of the spear. But with a creaking heave of his armor the Master

took advantage of the cocky student's bad positioning, hacking down on the

elbow with the blunt edge of his leather gauntlet, forcing the weapon to slap

down onto the floor. Then, before the snot-nosed fool could even begin another

sorry howl, the expert reached in and boxed the warrior's right tusk so hard

that it looked to the others as though the young one's head would be ripped

from his muscle-grieved neck. The student could only give to the force so

adroitly positioned. With a gasp he toppled to his knees.

"Nain-desintje-da. "

The pure win, of course. Nat'ka'pu expected nothing less of himself.

However, he spat upon his victim with open contempt. The fool should have

lasted longer in battle. For all his young pride and strength, he was one of

the more thoughtless sparring partners that the Leader had ever faced.

"You have much work before you if you wish to feel the sting of the Hard

Meat's thwei upon your brow-if you survive that long."

The student---a snarly, oily fellow named Ki'vik'non just glared back

silently and woodenly.

"Get away from my sight," snapped the Leader. "Go and wash disgrace and

defeat from your eyes. And cleanse your ears as well. You smell of

childbearer's musk. Hurry, Ki'vik'non ---- or your betters will wish to mate

with you."

The cruel joke set the others on the deck of the ship into a braying,

clicking laughter-derision. With as much dignity as he could muster under the

circumstances, the fallen would-be warrior rose to his feet with a clatter and

creak of his awuasa. Sunken deep in their orbs, his yellow eyes shone hatred

and disrespect before he clanked back into the ranks. Something was wrong with

this one, Nat'ka'pu thought. This Ki'vik'non lacked the sense of honor that

drove a good warrior. He bore watching. Nor would it be a good idea to turn

his back on Ki'vik'non when they---

Suddenly the enunciator in the wall of the kehrite blared.

"Kainde amedha!"

The Leader's mandibles rippled with satisfaction, even anticipation.

He turned to the younglings, his eyes blazing with challenge.

"Prepare your souls for some true action!"

The ship of the yautja descended from the clouds and skated across the tops

of trees. This was a fertile planet, which suited yautja purposes just fine.

Besides its variety of terrain, it had plenty of species of life, many quite

vicious and dangerous, making it prime Hunting material.

The yautja were Hunters who traveled from world to world, proving

themselves with the skill of their kills. Nor was Hunting just sport for them;

it was a way of life. It was the Path. The philosophy that bound their bones

more surely than did their sinews. They were Predators, and they often ate

what they could, but more often they collected and preserved only trophies to

testify to their prowess. They were Predators of meat physical, meat

spiritual, and below their ship now was one of their favorite tastes in

predatory effort.

Kainde amedha. Hard Meat.

And Hard in more ways than one.

Upon this Hard Meat, sown in chosen areas, the youth of this race cut their

tusks. Upon this Hard Meat, the inexperienced learned the Truth of the Path,

turned experience into value, came of age, became a true yautja and could

father younglings with pride and pass on the courage and honor that separated

Beings of Will from the dross of mere instinctual life.

The Hard Meat was valuable prey for the Hunter, because it could turn the

tables with a flick of a claw.

There was no more valuable target for Predators than other predators, for

in difficulty is there courage and honor. And honor and courage were of

paramount value in these creatures' lives.

Their ship looked like a combination between a fish and a huge engine tube.

With a strange flash of greenish hue, it landed in a clearing. A broad ramp

extended from it, and down the ramp the Hunting party strutted. Seven of them

there were: four students, the Leader, and two adjutants. The students and

Nat'kapu carried only spears; the adjutants carried burners.

They were giants, these warriors. Their average height was two and a half

meters, and even the shortest, at a mere two meters, had broad shoulders and

biceps that strained against their leather jerkins. They wore armor and masks,

and their tough, wirelike hair hung in dreadlocks from the back of their

necks. The first step toward becoming a warrior was the agony of the pleating

of these locks, a process that took months of ritual and scalp pain, performed

in public sessions. If there was any sign of tears or even the tiniest voicing

of pain, then the intricate weavings would be undone, and the candidate had to

start from the beginning.

Nat'ka'pu was in the forefront of the party, as befitted his rank. The two

adjutants held sight amplification equipment. They quickly scanned the

terrain. The short one grunted, then pointed.

The prey was spotted.

Nat'ka'pu called for the binoculars. He trained them on the bushes, saw the

squatting, partly hidden form of the Hard Meat.

How odd. It was not a Queen, and yet it was discernibly larger than the

average drone. The Leader tapped his mandibles thoughtfully against his mask,

then turned to face his charges.

"Who demands the honor of facing this fresh Meat first, alone?"

They all brandished their weapons as one, fiercely and yet quietly. This

was all part of the ceremony.

Nat'ka'pu laughed mockingly. "You are fools, all of you, and yet at the

first part of the Path lies the door of the fool."

"Perhaps you should show us the door, Leader," suggested Ki'vik'non.

"Perhaps I should show your intestines the point of my spear!" barked the

commander.

"It is true," said the short adjutant, whose name was Lar'nix'va. "These

are rank beginners and have never sucked Hard Meat before. It is not fitting

that a few feints be made by the Blooded-especially when the Blooded is said

to have fought the Hard Meat bare-fisted."

"And torn off its head!" spat Nat'ka'pu proudly. "Very well. But mark my

methods, for I will leave the final killing to you, my students."

That said, the Leader turned and walked jauntily. He'd weaken the thing so

that his charges could dispatch it easily. It had been a long day, and he was

looking forward to going back and selecting a bulb of c'ntlip to drink with

his bloody meal, to the relaxation it would bring and the pleasant dreams of

his wives, waiting for his valiant seed back home.

The yautja called this world Var. It was used only off and on for Hunting,

despite its merits. The Brave People were vagabonds of a sort and had a wide

field in which to range, touching on a variety of worlds. Too long in one

place created stale kv'var --- exercises. It blunted the warrior's soul, and

made the Path rocky and illusory.

When a flotilla of ships had returned to Var, however, there was a distinct

change. There were oomans here now, that new growth of intelligent Soft Meat

who were colonizing worlds. Nat'ka'pu knew that yautja lore spoke of many

expeditions to the homeworld of the oomans with delicious results. Adventures

to make a warrior smack his lips. The notion of performing kv'var on a world

where humans had settled-albeit only in one small area, and with odd purposes

and circumstances-stirred his blood. At the very least, hiding their

activities from the Soft Meat would give him a sense of superiority. And if

Nat'ka'pu actually encountered them and was forced to hunt oomans? Well, then,

all the better. Nat'ka'pu could use some ooman skulls to dangle from his

trophy cages. Perhaps that would even gain him some new conquest with females.

The thought stirred his seed within his loins and churned up his blood. He

could feel the aggression knotting in his muscles, and his great heart beat a

song of battle.

He advanced, his spear held out in front of him, part of the ritual of

Readiness.

The Hard Meat did not stir behind the covering of the bush, which was not

unusual. It was daylight, and though the Hard Meat was not nocturnal, it

preferred to slink through areas of darkness. That it was out in the open at

all was a wonder, but then, Nat'ka'pu had seen them in such circumstances

before. Nor did they usually travel alone, though the detectors showed no

other Hard Meat in the area. Just as well, however. The situation suited him

perfectly. It was as though it were tailor-made for such a training exercise,

and Nat'ka'pu was never one to push away a challenge of fate, even when it was

presented upon a tray of precious metal.

Had he merely wanted to kill the beast, he would have approached it in his

shiftsuit and turned a burner on it. There was no valor in that, though, and

certainly no lesson for the snot-noses.

No, he had to face the thing full on.

However, for the beast to be fought properly, it had to be aware of his

presence. This one seemed to be in an odd and awkward kind of repose. If it

had been dead, their sensors would not have picked up its signs.

So what was wrong with it?

Carefully, his warrior's instinctual antennae out and questing for

information, Nat'ka'pu advanced, his spear firmly placed before him, ready for

any sudden charges.

He came into full view of the creature.

The Hard Meat was indeed a large one.

It looked like the obscene skeleton of some larger monster, and Nat'ka'pu

could feel the familiar worm of fear threatening to wriggle in his gut. His

said his kantra, though, which kept the fear at bay, and used the spurt of

adrenaline to sharpen his senses.

Yes, the monster was obscene in every sense.

Part reptilian, part insect, part arachnid, and all evil, with no glow of

nobility or honor whatsoever. Just sheer vicious need to kill and procreate.

Its head was like a banana with teeth. No eyes. It had a reptilian tail,

and long mantis-like limbs. Pipes rose from its back like periscopes out of

hell.

Something different about this one, thought Nat'ka'pu. Something odd,

besides its large size.

His boot stepped on a dry twig.

Snap.

The response was immediate.

The Hard Meat rose up like a vehicle on hydraulic crane legs, and a

soul-chilling hiss escaped from its mouth. Thick saliva dripped from its jaws,

and it reared up for what looked like the beginning of a charge.

Nat'ka'pu went immediately into the Warrior's Stance, the position from

which all martial-arts moves in such Hunt battles derived. His mind spun

ahead, calculating the maneuvers that would be necessary when this creature

attacked.

The Hard Meat always attacked. These were not shy creatures. They were

vicious fighters, albeit with limited intelligence. They were tenacious and

cunning, with a terrible focus, and deadly weapons at their disposal. Even in

Death they could be deadly; their blood was acid that could eat through some

yautja armor, all yautja flesh.

The review flashed in his mind.

When facing Hard Meat with only a spear, the best course of action was a

penetration into the thing's inner defenses and then a quick upthrust through

the bottom of the head, into a portion of the brain that would paralyze it. At

that point, one could carve the thing up at leisure. The challenge in this

situation was to duel with it only awhile, perhaps slightly incapacitating it,

so that the students would have an easier road to the final victory. A wound

to the thorax perhaps, or a lopped-off limb.

Hiss.

The thing rose up and down, almost challenging.

Nat'ka'pu's mandibles bristled He could taste the blood of victory in his

mouth, even against the harsh, fearful smell the thing was exuding.

He raised his spear and chanted that most Holy of Holies, the Warrior's

Song, that blast of wind and rain that terrified greater prey than this.

Then, pride and joy brimming in his veins, he advanced upon the next leg of

the Path.

The kainde amedha suddenly stooped.

When it came back up, it was holding something in its limbs.

That was one of the things that was different about the thing, Nat'kapu

realized. The limbs were different. At their ends were structures very like

hands.

And in those hands now was a weapon.

No! Was this a dream? Hard Meat couldn't hold weapons.

But before he could think anymore, the weapon gave off a blast of fire that

cut through Nat'ka'pu like a giant saber, and the Great Path suddenly dropped

away like a trapdoor into pitiless darkness.

Lar'nix'va watched as the explosive bullets rammed through his commander's

armor, watched as they blew his head and chest apart like ripe naxa fruit.

He did not watch for long, however, for action in the life of the warrior

was the stuff of survival. This was no longer an exercise, this was the real

thing, and something incredibly unexpected had just happened.

Raising his burner, he ran forward, calling out a terse command for the

other adjutant to do likewise. The moment he was within striking distance, he

pressed the trigger. A stream of power and flame streaked out, attaching

itself to the Hard Meat before the creature had the chance to swing its weapon

around.

The thing screamed and fought against the power, but it was blown back,

blazing, pieces of its chitinous body tearing off.

The blast of his fellow adjutant pushed it over, finishing the destruction.

The Hard Meat was soon a pyre of death.

When the flames died down, the group walked through the gory ground,

littered with the blood of their commander.

"I am Leader now," stated Lar'nix'va matter-of-factly. "Is there any

challenge?"

There was none. Astonishment hung heavy amid the stink of Death.

When the dead creature had cooled, one of the students stirred the remains

with the end of his spear.

Lar'nix'va looked down, deeper astonishment filling him at the remains of

the creature.

A guttural snarl tore from his lips.

"What is happening upon this planet?" he said.

None of the others had an answer.

Lar'nix'va swung back and walked to his ship through the splattered body of

Nat'ka'pu.

The flotilla would need to be contacted.

This business bore evil portent, and from his life experience, the short

yautja suspected who lay at the root of it all.

For whenever there were oomans on a planet, there was always trouble.

Chapter 1

Peace can kill."

Machiko stared at the blocky letters she'd just written on her blotter for

a moment, then with a red pen commenced to illuminate the P, like a dusty old

monk at work on some Gothic Bible.

The cursor of her desk-bulb computer blinked blindly at her. A stack of

input crystals lay inert atop her IN compartment. A mug of coffee with a dead

multilegged, multieyed insect afloat on its turgid surface sat to one side,

beside a half-finished piece of dunktoast. The gray, flat plains of Alistair

Three stretched out from her window like nothing, squared.

The warrior was bored.

The memories of battle lived inside her like bloody monuments to a time

when she'd been truly alive.

A time of danger, nobility

And yes, honor.

She'd been a different person then.

Buddha, how she'd changed.

Ryushi had changed her. Her time with the yautja pack had changed her. Both

to the better, she thought. At the core of her soul, before, there had been

shame. Her father had brought shame upon her Japanese family in Kyoto,

embezzling from his company and then taking a coward's way out by killing

himself before he could be jailed. "You are my flesh, Machiko," he had said.

"You must restore the family's honor."

And then his blood had spilled.

Machiko Noguchi had tasted honor when the bugs had been loosed upon her

town of Prosperity Wells, fighting alongside Dachande and his warriors. When

she had joined the Hunter Pack, she had literally become honor. But then,

later, her humanity had called to her upon that miner's world, and although

honor demanded that she fight against the pack to save her ooman genetic kin,

it had meant betraying her place in the pack. And now, stuck back in the

muddle of humanity again, she had lost that sense of honor, become merely

quotidian.

And oh, yes-a little snarly, a little bitter.

She stared morosely at her vague reflection in the computer screen. A few

lines had formed beneath her dark Japanese eyes, and her short black hair was

a little gray, but otherwise she was an attractive woman. Small-breasted,

muscular, a compact beauty. It was lost on her, though. She longed for more.

She sighed.

You'd think the Company would at least let her bring Attila on shift. At

least then she'd have someone to talk to. She wouldn't have to resort to

doodling. However, the last thing the Company was interested in was her mental

health. As far as they were concerned, she could drool and doodle here, just

as long as she got her job done. Just as long as she stayed out of trouble.

If only they didn't have that contract hanging over her like the sword of

Damocles. If only she had money, a ftl-ship---a business plan . . . !

If only . . .

A high-pitched voice from a grille molded into the framework of the desk

beside the computer facet interrupted her reverie.

"Ms. Noguchi!"

She started, then immediately realized who it was. How many times had she

wished that she could yank this infernal radiocomm from its mooring and toss

it into the garbage blaster? Freedom would break out. Peace from the incessant

whine of the planet's Company president . . . a man who made certified anal

retentives seem relaxed and carefree.

"Yes, Mr. Darkins."

"How's that oversheet coming?"

"It's going well."

"Good. Glad to hear it. I need not remind you that it's due in my office at

the end of the week. Company heads are expecting a subspace transmission then,

and a comprehensive one. I trust that it will be a better job than last time."

"I think it will satisfy them."

"Good. Glad to hear it. You've got an important job, Ms. Noguchi. An

important job, on an important planet."

The transmission ended, with a faint buzzing sound like the annoying song

of a rat-fly.

Sure.

Important, her butt.

Alistair Three-also known as Doc's World-was a planet with a perfect

rotation, a perfect distance from the sun, a perfect atmosphere . . . perfect,

that was, for a blandly uniform surface, with bland cattlelike grazers on its

vast plains, few mountain ranges. Its weather was boring, its oceans were dull

and lusterless; all its specifics were the epitome of monotony. One of these

days humans from other planets would get around to fully populating this

planet, but for right now there were far more appealing planets to go to, with

much less distance between them and the rest of the human part of the galaxy.

What interested the corporation enough to dip its tentacles down into Doc's

World (named after one of the men who'd discovered it, Doc Warden, an

alcoholic ne'er-do-well whose ship had gotten lost, and whose comment on

Alistair Three was "Makes me want another drink") was simple.

The mining.

Not that Doc's World had anything like rubies or diamonds or unusual

precious gems.

No, what it had was narkon ore, a curious grade of ore created by Alistair

Three's unique mineral vulcanization process, which the corporation liked to

use in its starship engines. Thus it had set up this Blakean "dark satanic

mill" to mine and process said ore, then to transport it to satellites and

moons where the shipbuilding was accomplished. Almost ten thousand people

lived here in Solitaire City. Many were miners who took a daily troop train

twenty miles south to a mountain range where they worked. Many were the

miners' companions who often as not went with them. A few were supervisors and

managers. A few more were bureaucrats. Machiko was one of those few-albeit on

a top echelon-and she loathed it.

And to think of what her past had been.

To think that she had once run with a Predator pack.

Oh, how the Mighty had fallen.

She sighed and tapped up the spreadsheet. She began to examine the data

that had been entered by others, and to send the computer through its analytic

paces so that the corporation would have the precious vital statistics it

needed. She stared awhile at the screen, and then she put in another crystal,

adding a new matrix of information.

Juggle, juggle.

Toil, trouble.

After a while, she saved her work. She sipped her coffee. And then she

stared off into the plain plains of this nothing world, remembering what it

had been like to fly with lightning in her wings.

Chapter 2

Machiko, warrior, looked around and found herself surrounded by Death

The bugs.

For a brief moment fear exploded inside her. Then she realized that fear

was her friend. It helped limit the borders between life and death, light and

dark. It plumbed the depths of her soul and biochemistry, bringing up the

thunder of valor and the controlled explosion of adrenaline.

Up ahead Top Knot, running point, aimed a strafe of plasma. The fiery stuff

raked across a line of the aliens, cracking their chitin into cinders. Lethal

acid splashed back, boiling into acrid steam.

Others of the pack added to the fire, tearing a wide hole in the jumble of

the bugs, the swelling ranks pouring forth through tunnels to protect their

hive.

The pack had just landed on this planet in the majestic and silvery craft

that was their starship. Their mission was simple: secure this hive's Queen

for their own purposes. Simple though their goal might be, the road there was

not.

She was working with a pack of yautja on perhaps one of their most

dangerous objectives-indeed, so dangerous that the Predator Hunter's normal

codes of conduct in the pursuit went right out the window.

For this expedition, anyway, the ritual laws of matching the quarry weapon

for weapon were suspended.

The naginatas and scatterguns prescribed for hunting the kainde amedha, the

Hard Meat, were replaced by plasmacasters and lasers.

This was no Hunting trip.

This was war.

Just as it had generally been in the history of her own ooman peoples,

there are no rules in war.

Only objectives.

Machiko, warrior, was no longer Machiko Noguchi. No longer a streamlined

ramrod for the corporation on a planet of alien cattle. She was Dahdtoudi,

proud and brave warrior, who had proved herself on the planet called Ryushi

David Bischoff - Aliens Vs Predator 02 - Hunter's Planet

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