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I Don't Regret	By : JasminSteele Category: M through R > Predator Views: 3941 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Predator nor do I make any monetary gain from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Sixteen
Lack of A Plan
Boedog came to me looking very tired and about ready to give up on life. I had never seen him so depressed, not since we left Ru-ut'telta and Tobias behind to go on our Chiva.
A great sigh escaped my adopted brother once he plopped down on his bed across from me. I was busy reading up on human physiology so I could be better prepared for if, or when, my human comrade, Tobias, was injured.
"What troubles you so, Mei-hswei?" I asked gently from my perch. Another heavy sigh escaped him before he looked at me with very sad eyes.
"It's Beira," he said making me nod. I knew the shorter male had been giving Boedog 'trouble'. Beira was into males, as Boedog was but, Boedog had a mate back home. There was a bond between them that I knew could not be broken or compromised.
"Need me to speak with him?" I asked but Boedog just shook his head.
"You don't understand, it's Beira," he emphasized more, making me think.
The realization hit me hard and caused me to blink and shake my head several times as I wrapped my head around it. Boedog was referring back to when I told him about the rumor I had heard on the ship, someone thought males should be in charge and they were trying to get others to join him.
"Are you sure?" I asked suddenly serious and gained a nod.
Ever since we had boarded the ship there had been rumors floating around, rumors that there was a male, or a few, that believed in a male dominated society. There were many reasons the majority of our people did not have males ruling and they were all good ones. Talk of a male run society was all but outlawed- every time it was mentioned an Arbiter was called in to see what was going on. Usually there was some sort of unrest but with a few compromises from both sides a peaceful solution was found.
For the few times that the males wouldn't budge they were deemed to be too high of a risk and death was their sentence. If any escaped then they were hunted down, brought back and publicly executed to be made an example for others.
Thankfully I led a content and exciting life. I had no desire to become 'supreme ruler' of anything and the thought of a society of ruling males was not pleasing. Females kept order and balance much better than almost any males I knew personally, which was why they ruled.
"I don't know what to do," Boedog said flopping back onto his bed. I knew the predicament was difficult; if we went to the Elder of the ship we would have a hard time proving our accusation plus it would alert Beira and possibly whoever he was working for.
I had a 'hunch' from the beginning that there was something off about him. He felt like the henchman type, willing to do the dirty work for a superior or master. He was somewhat sly and from the other way a few males hungrily looked at him I got a bad feeling. There were many tools to entice someone over to your side.
It didn't help that our hunting party started out at fifty and fell to just nine near the end of our trip. There shouldn't have been that many casualties and the Elder refused to see it. I tried to speak with him several times but he waved it off as 'an unusually difficult Chiva'. Beira could have been a very good reason for that. Since the rumor stayed a rumor I assumed that he had become upset no one would join his cause…it would only make sense that if we weren't with him then we were against him.
The short male had to have had help from outside the ship to cause such devastation, though, because I knew that the number of Kainde Amedha we were finding were exceptionally high no matter where we went. The ship didn't even have the number of eggs on board to account for all the prey we ran into.
"We do nothing," I said with a hardness to my voice. There was nothing we could do but wait him out. Since we knew that he was the male that had started the rumors for sure I could better play along with him and be on 'his side'. He already like Boedog but my constant apprehension of him could have labeled me as a potential threat.
"We will have to play along until we can contact Otic," I continued seeing the look in my adopted brother's eyes. He was surprised at my suggestion but nodded after I mentioned Elder Thaiden's sister.
"What about the Elder?" he asked me. I shook my head, looking down feeling slightly ashamed.
"I brought the situation to him already, he waved me off about it."
"Then we will have to-"
I nodded holding up a hand. "We have to play along but set boundaries for him if you need to. I expect he hasn't come right out and confessed anything?" Boedog nodded making me feel better. "Then we just let him do what he wants to do. Keep your hands clean, though, and keep your mind clean as well. Tell him that I will follow you no matter where you go, you are my brother," I finished with a much more loving tone. The situation made me get up and sit next to him on his bed. "I will follow you to the afterlife," I told him with a hand on his shoulder. "You need only to say when."
He smiled at me and nodded. Our past was a deep one, my mother found him on his home world amongst the rubble of his destroyed home. He was the only surviving heir to the throne but with everything gone he had nothing to rule. To make it worse for him he was barely old enough to be left alone. If he had had a normal life then he would have still been saturated with his mother's care. Such as it was she was gone along with everything else. My mother took him in and we became as brothers were supposed to be. I would follow him wherever he went for whatever reason.
"Then all we can do is wait," he said with another strained sigh. "I don't like it," he said and I agreed.
The next few days Boedog avoided Beira but I went about my daily routine letting the small male see me. It was on the third day that he finally approached me looking a little worried.
"I haven't seen Boedog around, have you?" he asked while I was eating my midday meal. He had a tray of food in his hands but he didn't look like he wanted to sit unless I told him 'yes'.
With my nod he sat down and forgot about his food. "Has he been avoiding me?" he asked boldly and I nodded again. Beira knew I didn't like him that much and I didn't, playing it off as a prejudice against 'homo's', as Tobias gave us the derogatory term, I let him know my views.
"You go where you aren't wanted," I said taking another bite of food. I could see Beira shift uncomfortably under my heavy gaze. "You opened deep wounds," I continued. Boedog had told me what he told Beira and wanted that to be the reason why he was avoiding him.
Beira stiffened considerably, me not liking him made him wary because I wasn't a mindless brute like a few of the other males were. I was smart enough to still be alive after the catastrophe that was our Chiva.
"Apologies," he said bowing his head. "I did not mean to. I only wanted to…" he trailed off as I glared at him.
"He has also had to say 'no' to you too many times. Make him say it again and you won't have to worry about his rejection again." My words had a certain finality to them and I left Beira sitting alone at the table to let them sink in. He knew that Boedog and I were close and I would protect him with my life. I was hoping that Boedog would relay to him relatively soon that I would follow my adopted brother no matter what.
The rest of the day felt tainted to me. Knowing what Beira was doing, or at least assuming, made me feel very ill that I couldn't tell someone about it. I knew the Elder wouldn't believe me without proof and because I had none I couldn't do anything.
It was my whole hearted intention to contact Otic as soon as I found out about Beira but I couldn't even risk that. Sending her a transmission would mean it would be logged on the ship and logs were public. If Beira was keeping tabs on me to make sure I wasn't a threat to him I could only continue my normal routine.
Which was what I did, even as we went on our last excursion.
All nine of us left the ship but, it was for a very good reason. Our Elder had detected a queen Kainde Amedha on the planet- it was our duty to destroy her as soon as we found her, no matter what the cost. He had tracked her moving across the surface and followed her trail into a network of tunnels at the base of a volcano.
The entire time I was getting ready and making sure everyone else was ready I had the sinking feeling that none of us would return. Beira didn't look at all perturbed by the fact that we were going to exterminate a queen and her hive, as if he knew something we did not. He might have known how the queen got to the planet, she certainly hadn't hatched from any of our eggs. It had to be a setup, one that our Elder did not see.
The other five hunters that hadn't gained trophies yet were agitated, to put it lightly. They had always drawn the short straw when determining who went out first and I was betting all of them were cursing their luck.
Our Elder, on the other hand, looked excited and I finally figured out why he kept waving me off: he had a death wish. He had gone out on every hunt, very excited but, whenever we came back, even if he did have trophies, he was depressed. He was wanting to die in battle, slain by his prey. It was a good way to die but he was too experienced, even being overwhelmed did little to his constitution but that was thanks to the young bloods. I was sure that if he was by himself he would have let himself fall instead of retreating and getting us back to safety.
"Be alert," he told us loudly as we jetted towards the surface. "If there is a queen she could have a large brood. They like to wait until you are deep inside the nest before surrounding you and cutting off your escape. Expect not to make it out alive today," he finished coldly.
The sad truth was that we hardly had a chance of getting out alive if there was a full grown queen on the surface. What was most likely going to happen was that we would all set off our bombs to make sure she was good and dead along with her hive.
Our ride down was rough, the atmosphere of the planet was harsh and not breathable for us, one of the worst case scenarios. Not only that but the queen had been detected near a volcano, both probes we sent down were quickly destroyed by overflowing magma. She had chosen a precarious place but our Elder surmised that was because she was still very young and wanted the protection.
I could only hope that she was young and hadn't started to lay eggs yet. Whatever creature she had been borne out of was a secondary concern; whatever she came out of she would be like. If it was a vicious predator then she would be aggressive, her already deadly weapons would be even deadlier. If she came out of a docile plant eater she would be smart but slow and only slightly less deadly.
'Nine against ten thousand', I reminded myself. That was potentially the number of her brood we would have to face, it was a large number but a doable number.
"We're right above them," the Elder told us. We had piloted down a small ship so we could land quietly but we weren't going to land the ship. Everyone had their wrist computer on and synced to the small vessel so that if by some miracle we survived we could call it down to retrieve us. Our way down was by jumping out into the alien atmosphere and floating silently down.
Kainde Amedha used scent and hearing to survive and they were well adapted to using them, better than most other animals by far. We were hoping to glide silently down, land undetected and make our way through the nest to find our goal. There were a plethora of things that could go wrong just in the fall- the hot air from the volcano, for one, could send us all off course.
The Elder went first after putting the ship on auto pilot. He didn't even hesitate to look down before stepping through the opened cargo doors. There was an unspoken rule for the hunting party, I would always bring up the rear. It was because I was the largest and, so far, the best of the group. If anything wanted to take us from behind they would have to deal with me first, no easy task.
I always took up the back, anyways, so that Beira couldn't stab me, or Boedog, if he ever got the notion to do so.
Everyone else quickly followed the Elder out the door, including myself, so that we could stay together and not get separated. Our landing zone was small and quite some distance from any of the entrances to the potential nest. It was right next to an open river of lava, which complicated our landing, but it would ensure that we went undetected. The amount of heat would mask our scent when we landed and the roaring river any noise we made.
Air whipped my hair behind me making me thankful I had bound it tightly. Not only was I the largest among the group my hair was also the longest. I had grown it out to help compensate for my core temperature, I ran hotter than was normal for my people and the more hair I had the easier it was to let off excess heat and I knew I was going to need that ability once we were inside the dangerous setting.
My comrades and I fell with our bodies spread to keep our descent as slow as possible, the wind was bitter from our height but the mesh we wore kept us warm. The air only got warmer the longer we fell and before long we could all see the glow of the volcano and its rivers clearly once we passed through a few dense clouds.
One by one we deployed our parachutes, me first, then down the line below me. The fall didn't do much to my nerves, I didn't even think anything of it as I was jerked up violently until my speed was drastically reduced. If anything had to be done I was going to do it without a second thought, jumping out of a space vessel included. I was sure a few of my other comrades, though, just had the best ride of their lives.
"Watch the updrafts," was the dull toned report from the Elder. He was spiraling above the volcano making sure to give it a wide birth on one side so we could come in for a clean landing from behind. We all followed suit except for one lad, he was the youngest out of all of us and had been wreaking of fear since the day I met him. He wasn't very impressive and it didn't surprise me when he veered off course.
The poor pup had panicked and wanted to set down as soon as he could but it was to his demise. As much as our Elder tried to coach him and calm him down he veered over the volcano and quickly lost control. A sharp updraft caught him, sending him into a spiral upwards then it became dangerous. He was swung wide then up above the canvas where he fell straight into it. We all watched as he was wrapped up in the fabric and became a stone. We could all hear his screams and shrieks as he plummeted to his death into a hot pool of lava.
My heart was racing the whole time, my tongue frozen in fear. I could have helped talk him down into some semblance of calm and he could have survived though possibly jeopardized our mission.
When we all finally touched down our hearts were already heavy, mine especially. We were down one good set of hands and a bomb.
Silently the Elder signed to us our roles. He was going to take two with him while everyone else spread out. We were to maintain silence as we moved, only using our locators to track one another. Our goal was to find entrances and then make it to the center of the nest without being detected. If anyone was caught they were to kill themselves if they could not escape immediately, we could take no chances of brooding an abomination.
My hope was that Beira would get ambushed or fall into a pit of lava. With how my luck had been going, though, he would be the one to sneak around and kill everyone off one by one or let the Kainde Amedha do it for him. I didn't hold high hopes that he would actually help us with our task, more likely he would find a hole and wait for all of us to die.
After getting our orders we each split up then silently made our way to entrances we had found while floating down. Mine was the farthest one away from anyone else. Boedog, thankfully, was closest to the Elder but Beira was behind him. I was once again going to bring up the rear, the most dependable position should anything else go awry. If anything I was ready to set my bomb off at a moments notice though I didn't want to be there when it did.
Silently I crawled over the hot stone that had cooled recently from a lava flow. My sandals were gathering heat and nearly caught flame by the time I made it to the cooler tunnel. The tunnel itself was large and I could already see signs of my prey. The naturally secreted slime covered a small corner on the outside and left a trail leading deep into the darkness. Quickly I knelt down and gathered all that I could, slathering it on myself in every nook and cranny I could reach.
There wasn't enough to cover me entirely but enough to be confusing should any drones detect me. If I came across more along the way I would have to gather it until I was covered, just to be safe.
Everyone was trained to grab the sickly slime, as unpleasant as it was, as a safety precaution and just good hunting tactics. Silently I hoped that everyone else had found slime and was already covered in it since they were ahead of me.
Checking my scanner I saw that everyone was where they should have been. My tunnel ran above everyone else's and after a while I realized that it was vacant of life. Finding that out pleased me greatly and allowed me to increase my speed to meet up with the others sooner.
Boedog's dot saw what I was doing and he slowed his pace knowing I would catch up to him. Beira kept up with the Elder's pace, I could see where they would meet up down the line.
A very bad thought popped into my head all of a sudden distracting me: Beira could tell the Elder anything he wanted to, that we had turned against them or some other farce. Quickly I put the thought aside and trotted on quietly.
Looming into view a cavern filled the space on my internal map screen. There were dozens of tunnels leading into it from all directions, some looked formed by alien hands while others looked natural. Nervousness started to creep in, I was in a natural tunnel and so was the Elder and his team but Boedog was not. He was in an artificial tunnel making me worry for him. I knew he could take care of himself, he was usually more level headed and alert than I was.
I came upon my opening to the cavern, slowing my pace then getting on my hands to crawl forward until I could get a good view. Everyone else was positioned in hiding places, staying still until we got a signal. Across the way I could barely see the Elder, he was signing to us to scan the room then wait, all eyes on him. He signed it several times to make sure everyone saw him. I signaled 'affirmative' back then saw a few more flashes of hands along various parts of the domed room. My position was highest and had the best chance of a surprise attack but I didn't see our quarry. She was in the room, her life sign loomed like a glowing mother ship but I couldn't see her.
Kainde Amedha were akin to insects but instead of generating their own body heat they let the acid in their blood chemically warm them. Their chemical was invisible to our natural vision because it produced no actual heat, making them look like their surroundings. Even with our masks on it was difficult to detect them unless we used a certain setting.
Using that setting, though, was dishonorable. It made tracking and hunting our prey much easier, too easy for most and it was a source of pride if you could gain a trophy without it. I had already gained many trophies, as had Boedog, Beira and the Elder but, a trophy was not our goal. Our Elder signaled for us to switch to that mode, the 'green' mode, so we could spot our target.
Suddenly the room was lit up with dozens of spotlights of bright green. Most of it was background colors from the newly forming nest, only a few shapes were moving and there was only one large enough to be the queen.
Relief washed over me as I only counted a few drones working up one side of the far wall across from me. The large shape tucked into the back was indeed very large but small for a queen, she was young and had barely started to lay any eggs. In fact, I didn't even see her egg sac attached to her or anywhere in the room.
Odd, I thought to myself but thought nothing of it. Eight against ten thousand, I reminded myself to bring my confidence level back down. Even though I only saw a few workers that didn't mean they were the only other ones there. The young queen could have had dozens of eggs laid and warriors nearby to come to her aide. I had to expect anything to happen because anything could happen.
Our Elder signaled again that he was ready and once everyone else gave the 'ready' signal he went into action.
Bright flashes of light filled the room and knocked out all of the workers and started to barrage the queen. She was above a large mound of rocks but was being drawn down by the fire. Her smaller size made her more agile but she wasn't very quick. She did manage to dodge most of the plasma fire and close in on the Elder but that was when everyone jumped out and surrounded her. She was to fall quickly, I was only backup in case more drones or warriors showed up and if need be, finish off the queen by surprise attack.
That surprise attack was looking more and more appealing the longer my comrades fired upon her. Her chitin was thick, thicker than usual and probably thanks to what ever creature she came out of. The thick armor wasn't yielding to the plasma like it should have been and it only made her angry.
Quickly she swatted away the Elder's two boys that had followed him. I wasn't sure if they were dead or not but I couldn't count them in the fight any longer, their injuries were too severe from the splattering of blood that came from them.
The next lad that jumped in was deftly grabbed and then lost an arm thanks to the queen's unmerciful jaws. She swung around and faced the Elder when he shot her, keeping the young boy in her grasp and squeezing the life from him as she advanced on our leader.
Boedog tried to gain her attention to lead her closer to my position, I was in the perfect spot to jump down and at least get a sword into her skull but he wasn't having any luck. It was when Beira joined him and fired wildly above her head causing rubble to come down did she give them her undivided attention.
Beira quickly retreated and circled behind the queen to join the Elder. He was leaving me no choice but to jump in too soon if Boedog got in danger but that was the plan.
Thankfully the queen did swat Boedog away and to the side first with almost a half hearted slap. He had enough sense to play dead as I saw a couple more bodies slither in along the far wall allowing the queen to return her attention to the Elder and Beira.
It was to my horror that I got to witness a Bad Blood in action; as the queen neared Beira and the Elder, despite their plasma fire, Beira decided to pull back a little and then trip the Elder when the queen was right on top of them. She didn't hesitate at the chance and drove her tail into the Elder's gut. She was about to finish him off when Boedog heard the roar of pain and started to fire again. He let loose a barrage of plasma and threw his two disks at her, slicing pieces of her crown off. Beira was busy with the new drones letting the queen stomp over to Boedog to put an end to him.
I saw my opening, she was completely distracted by Boedog, her body stretched out before me and her neck a prime target. Taking a few steps back I put all of my power into my legs and sprinted forward then leapt from my position, one sword drawn. Silently I sailed through the air then came down at just the right angle, my sword was an extension of my arms as I powered through the thick chitin and down until my feet hit solid rock beneath me.
Loud hissing reminded me of the deadly blood as I rolled quickly to the side to avoid the spray, thanking Paya that Boedog was already safe and dealing with the last of the workers that came through a far tunnel. The severed head of the queen was hanging on by threads of tendon and muscle, her movements jerking then easing into a death pose.
Relief washed over me as I ran to catch up with Boedog, he had finished off three smaller workers, all were before him, heads cut off and bodies in awkward positions.
Once we looked at each other I realized that the Elder could have still been alive even after the betrayal. Quickly we bounded over to him and Beira, who was knelt over the Elder.
"Call the ship," I told Boedog then set in to patch up what I could.
"Leave…me," the Elder gasped but I shook my head. There was no way of telling if he knew Beira had tripped him up or if he thought it was something else. The peaceful look on his face told me he had finally gotten his wish.
"That's an…order," he tried to growl at me but I only injected him with a blood clotting agent.
"Hold this down," I told Beira. The small male sat still for a few moments before moving into position. I had packed most of the deep wound and pressure was needed to try and stop the bleeding.
Beira had to think I hadn't seen his treachery or he would have let the Elder die and tried to kill me next. I acted as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary and treated him as I normally would have.
Boedog left us then came back with a stretcher. Together he and Beira took up the front while I took up the back. As fast as our feet could carry us over the smoothed and sometimes jagged terrain we raced back to our small craft.
The whole time we were returning to the ship I wanted to murder Beira, to rip his heart out and show it to him but I had to focus. Boedog took over holding the pack down while I piloted us back. Once on board the large clan ship we raced the Elder to the med room.
Beira sat quietly off to the side while my adopted brother helped me frantically to save one life I actually saw the Bad Blood try to take. There was too much damage, too much blood loss and it was time for him to go, no matter how much I didn't want him to.
The Elder fell unconscious long before he let out his final breath. I never stopped working until then, and even a little bit afterwards. There was nothing I could do to stabilize him, his entire gut had been stabbed and nearly ripped out to his right. It was a miracle he stayed alive long enough to make it back to the ship.
After covering his body and putting it in cold storage I sat in the med room with the only other remnants of our once large group. Many feelings swirled inside of me as we sat silently together. The air was full of heavy hearted loss and I played it up even more by saying a quiet prayer for our most recent losses. We still had to go down to the surface and recover the rest of the bodies, and our trophies, so the prayer was the last thing I said before we headed back out.
Instead of sky diving back down we landed near to an entrance that was closest to the domed room. There was nothing but stragglers running about, we didn't even bother to hunt them down as we gathered our brethren.
The other two left it to me to gather the queen's head. She was technically my kill and her trophy belonged to me but all I wanted to do was take the damn thing and beat Beira with it until he was a bloody smear on the ground.
My anger did nothing but grow as we worked, gathering trophies just made my blood boil more and more and the tension grew to a breaking point.
That point came after we bombed the surface to extinguish the rest of the Kainde Amedha.
"We should find a place to refuel and then return, what do you think Tox?" Beira asked hesitantly. I knew he could feel the anger and tension all around me, I was just looking for an excuse to let loose on him.
One stern look from Boedog kept my anger in check, though, enough to at least not kill the Bad Blood where he stood.
"Do what you want," I growled at him and stomped off the bridge in anger and frustration. We could still do nothing to Beira even though I witnessed what he had done and had a recording of it. It wasn't up to me to deal his punishment, it was up to an Arbiter, like Otic.
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I Don't Regret