Lucy the Hound

Lucy POV

“Kill her,” Dr. Lupus ordered over the broken intercom.

It had been damaged by xenomorph blood, and we didn’t have the funds to replace it. No one near us would deliver in this shit hole at the regular price.

“I refuse,” I sat down cross-legged, looking up to the observation deck to my right, where he loomed down on us.

“Be a good girl, Lucretia,” he was insistent, hoping it would not go like that last time I refused to fight against straggler.

Dog fights had gotten boring ages ago. I pondered twiddling my thumbs. I mostly fought xenomorphs. To Lupus’s dismay, I was his only viable hybrid experiment. In appearance I was a human with a strange tail. I was told the lumps on my chest were due to me being female. This also meant that the xeno part of me was queen. The host I had been cloned from, I most looked like her. Tall as a male, warmed toned skin and bushy-haired. They kept my hair the same length the host had it right below my shoulder blades. I had made my battle outfit based on the costume worn by the wrestlers Jun watched on repeat. It was made from the skins of my fallen brethren. Dead, fighting me. This time Lupus had gotten his hands on a stronger opponent. A Yautja, he had called her. Big bulging with muscles, her face had insect qualities with those mandibles. The lines of her face though were soft, and she had an interesting colour pattern red as blood, white as bones and black as pupils.

She did not seem keen to fight either. I looked up what information I could about her kind on our mainframe. They were said to be hunters, not entertainers. Lupus had let me analyze her weapons. I was the only one who could learn fast enough. He wanted to have as much information on this technology before the main branch came to claim it. We had been publicly disavowed. But those who made bets on the illegal fights were all officially part of Weyland. Disgraced, my makers had been profitably streaming the fights in our unofficial branch. The experiments they did were deemed unethical and the funding stopped coming in. Something about xenomorphs being a plague that gave them too much flak.

The yautja stood her ground standing in case I changed my mind. She became proactive after Lupus threatened her descendant.

“Only one of you leaves. Subject 1-D if you don’t make a move, we’ll gift you the head of your son.”

There must have been lots of money on the line. This time I had chances of losing. I mean, she was almost twice as big as me. But that meant I was quicker. She moved towards me, pushing honour aside for blood. I dodged her clawed hand by rolling and immobilized her arm with my legs. She promptly threw me against the heavy metal wall below the observation deck. I could hear the cement on the floor fry under the droplets of blood coming out of the back of my head. It was not the only acid hole down there. She lifted me by the throat, not yet crushing it. I freed myself by piercing her forearm with my long slander tail. Its sharp, hard point pulled out of her flesh covered in neon green liquid. One good head bud from below and I heard the crack of a mandible. She roared and swung at me. I might have gone too rough, but it was crucial to buy some time. I managed to slide behind her and jump on her back. I put her in a choke hold long enough to warn her to where I guessed her ear to be.

“The power is about to go out.”

I let go subtly and she caught me, slamming me onto the floor. Approaching her head to mine, her dreadlocks fell around my face. She waited for an explanation growling.

“The queen,” I continued, “her drones broke out. They are going to free her. I can hear it.”

She struck me with her enormous forehead. I felt blood gush from my broken nose. The lights went out and a red glow flashed from the observation deck. She helped me up and I put my nose into place with a crunch.

“It’s not like I didn’t expect payback,” I commented.

She was holding the hole in her forearm. She had given me little in terms of payback for that and I was grateful for it.

She was trying to find a door. She was getting out of breath, and it was not from the fight. She probably thought her kid was in great danger. I mean, he was. Just less than she thought.

“My pup… danger,” she banged on the wall where her door was dissimulated.

“Don’t worry,” I told her before blowing some blood out of my nose. The floor let out a satisfying sizzle. “I got my own drones on standby by his door and in the air vent it will buy you time.”

“Your drones?” she asked.

“Well, stolen I guess,” I answered, smiling silver toothed. Some slimy drool slips out of my mouth. Bleeding tended to make me produce resin.

“Out.”

“I’m on it.”

I rubbed my thick salvia on my wounds. Straggler should have reached us by then. He used his cellmate’s corrosive guts to get out amidst the confusion. I walked to my door. He was on the other side trying to get it open with the handprint scanner.

“Get us out!” she stomped her way to me.

“He’s almost got it!” My head felt an intensifying, painful buzz.

It finally opened and there he was, a full-fledged xenomorph older than they ever grew to be and still slick and spry as chest-buster. He was covered in old and new scars and waited on the other side of the doorway holding on to a severed hand. I looked up at the observation booth and the glass was dripping with blood. He handed me the limb. It was Lupus’s, I knew it from the smell. I would have killed him myself if I had not been stuck in the fighting pit.

“Done already?” I asked, he didn’t waste anytime. “Well, you better head to the scrap yard, before the ship gets damaged. The bitch knows what’s we’re up to and wants to destroy it.”

He grumbled through our two-member temporary hive link. I knew he wasn’t helping out of the goodness of his heart. He ran off into the flashing red lights, and I followed suit with the female Yautja around my tail. My ship, old Jenny, was not the only thing my sister was after. There was also the little Yautja. She already had a strong egg ready for him. She wanted the mother too, but she was aware the grown Yautja was harder to catch.

“The queen wants to get to your kid. I’m confusing her drones all I can, but she’s getting mad at me,” I babbled throwing her the hand. I was under attack from the other queen’s hive link. I was fighting one dizzy spell after the other. “Do you know where he is?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Good. I’ll go get your weapons. We need to get out of here as soon as possible.” We couldn’t let those in the hands of Weyland.

From what I learned in the few weeks, I had access to them. The technology fast exceeded Weyland. With their slow as light speed and awful localization formulas that only worked for local travel. If it weren’t from the relays, they hid around the galaxy no signal could have gotten to our shit hole.

I picked up an automatic rifle from one the body of Stanley, a guard with a hole in his face. I took the safety off and handed it to her before we headed to the staircases.

“You know how to use this?”

She shot an incoming drone answering my question.

“Wait for me in the kid’s cell.”

“No. We leave.”

“Not without me if you want to fly off this rock.”

“We hide, outside.”

“Weyland’s main branch is already on their way here to get your child. We need to fuck off as soon as we can. With your technology.”

Another drone came our way. I ran to it, ripping its head off with my momentum and strong grip.

“I’ll be quick.” I headed towards the hallway leading to the emergency stairs. “Good luck.”

I went up, her down.