Holy crap, guys. It’s been nearly a year and a half but we have reached the end of my terrible Aliens vs. Predator fanfiction novel. We’ve had a lot of laughs, and we’ve felt a lot of pity, but it’s time to replace this digital tome in the virtual stack from whence it came. Let’s see off these alternately idiotic and morally depraved characters, shall we?
Swift-Death
finished climbing up the steep, rocky hole and stepped out into the daylight.
Lv-1201’s bright green sky filtered through the Predator’s mask and stung at
his eyes. He had not seen the planet’s sun for hours until now. After his beady
eyes became accustomed to the light, he proceeded forward to the large
clearing, ten metres away from the main Hive entrance.
Which was also three kilometres away from the
former POC and five from the nearest Denny’s.
Hopefully
the Marine commander had done what requested and radioed help from his father’s
clan. Thankfully, he had, for as he set up the small portable beacon, it
responded with static. In other words, the sound of a ship replying.
Note: Swift-Death has obviously never operated a
radio in his life.
Minutes
passed, and soon a skeletal ship appeared on the horizon. Faster than any
dropship, it soared toward Swift-Death in seconds, where it landed almost silently.
Swift-Death
clacked his mandibles together, and held out his chest in pride, as to show his
two trophies. The ship’s ramp opened, and in a cloud of fog, Wise-One,
Swift-Death’s father, and his brother Agile-One walked down onto the rocky
ground.
His uncle, Creepy-One-We-No-Longer-Talk-About, hadn’t
traveled with them in ages.
The
old Predator strode toward Swift-Death, and shook him by the shoulder, a
traditional Yautja greeting.
Looks like this bro grab wasn’t rejected.
“Son,”
Wise-One said in their native tongue. “I see your hunt has gone well.”
“It
has, father,” Swift-Death replied. “I have succeeded in completing my vengeance.”
“I
see, I see. Very well. One day, son, you will become the greatest hunter one
has ever known of.”
“Thank
you, father,” Swift-Death praised.
Plot twist: the Predators were replaced by robots
at the last second, hence the previous exchange of dialogue.
“Are
you going to stand around all day?” Agile-One joked. “There is probably a lot
more prey here than Swift-Death has killed.”
“No,”
Wise-One objected. “It has been a long time since we have seen your brother.
And besides, I think we have overstayed out welcome.”
Around them, all of Lv-1201 burned.
The
two younger Predators agreed, and they followed their father back into the
ship. Minutes later, the plasma-driven engines of the bone-like ship fumed, and
the ship took off. It took barely half a minute to exit the thin atmosphere of
the planet.
“Bone-like ship”? I’m desperately searching for a
shot of Dr. Evil’s rocket from the second Austin
Powers movie, but alas.
Once
in space, the primary afterburners ignited, and the ship cloaked as it reached
half the speed of light.
Far
away, on the other side of the planet, a slightly similar ship let out a burst
of plasma as it did the same. It’s pilot, Dark-Hunter, snarled angrily as he
saw the other ship cloak and speed away. His clients were dead, as were their
business. He felt no remorse for the human scientist and general, for they had
died less than honourable deaths. But then again, honourable applied to him no
longer.
The
mercenary roared in anger, and watched the stars as he accelerated away.
Dark-Hunter, unlike his basis Jango Fett, will
return to fight another die. Or not, because if I ever return to this material
you have every right to put me down like a less rabid Old Yeller.
Meanwhile,
in the very centre of the huge hive that governed Lv-1201, Dr. Eisenberg lay
strung to a wall with hive webbing, dead. He had been dead for the past hour or
so, killed in the very same corridor where Jimrakh had held the scientist high,
the lights burning out.
This paragraph feels like equal parts redundant and
CSI: Lv-1201.
But
this was the Hive. Hundreds upon hundreds of Aliens crouched on the floor,
ceiling and walls of the Empress’ chamber. The Empress herself, along with the
many other Queens, stood with power in the center of the room, roaring. Before
them stood Jimrakh, the true hero of the Aliens, prepared to receive his
honours.
It was
a confusing ceremony, if a human had been listening. The snarls, growls and
squawks were only gibberish to human ears.
“Tsa
jopha tuk, Jimrakh,” the Empress said. “Translation: We honour you, Jimrakh.”
“Ja
bodu tuk jopah,” the Warrior replied. “Translation: I accept your honour.”
“Meh
tuk toras de yearas,” the lesser Queens wished. “Translation: May you stand for
ages.”
Let it be known that the above translation failed
to clear up any confusion whatsoever.
All at
once, every Alien in the Master Hive roared in celebration. One of the lesser
drones in the entire population of xenomorphs had been accepted as a ruler.
Just as Swift-Death’s roar had echoed throughout the Hive over an hour before,
the screech of the Aliens showed that they were the true rulers of this planet.
And it
was up to Jimrakh and the legions of Warrior Aliens to uphold that decree.
Well God help that planet, then.
Harrison
sighed in relief as the dropship entered the cavernous main hanger of the
Verloc. Shugi and Blackwell gave each other high-fives in celebration. Jones
and Duke pulled out bottles of Jack Daniel’s and drank in praise to the Lord.
Johnson threw the helmet off her head, gasping in happiness. She sadly laid the
ranking badge of Decker, who had been killed in the war, on the co-pilot’s
seat.
Rest in peace, Decker: we knew you not at all,
actually.
McCain
and the lieutenant from the Tyrago stepped off the dropship ramp and into the
clean air of the hanger.
“Thanks,
Marcus, you pulled us through,” McCain said to the commander.
“No
problem, McCain. We’ll be bringing this puppy back to our ship soon. See you at
Earth.”
“Nah,
Harrison and I have a lot to sort out that has to do with the Company. In other
words, good old Alice the Exo-Suit needs to knock some heads.” Marcus smiled at
McCain’s remark as he headed back to his dropship.
I’m saddened I didn’t write a sequel in which
Harrison strolls into a boardroom in his heavily armed robot exoskeleton and
opens fire on a bunch of CEOs.
The
Marines followed McCain out into the hanger. “Thank God all this is over,”
Harrison groaned to Ivan and Tomiko. “I’m going to be having one huge rest.”
“Go do
that,” Ivan replied, grinning as he watched the dazed Dunya being kicked out of
the dropship by Shugi. “I have something to do.”
“What?”
Tomiko asked.
“I’m
not about to be arrested for this mess, but I still have something to fill
out,” Ivan answered. With special permission, he walked out of the hanger and
to the ship’s Mother CPU.
In
Mother, Ivan used the access codes and entered Gateway Station as the
transmission destination. He switched on the audio recorder and began to speak.
“Hello,
Gateway. This is Lt. Ivan Smitchuk here. I’m reporting because I am the
highest-ranking officer left in the military sent to Lv-1201. I’m sure that
with the loss of contact, you’re wondering what has been going on here. As
second-in-command, and a witness to almost all the events in this situation, I
can explain.”
And he does; the actual text, linked to near the
top of his entry, sees Ivan recounting the events of the entire novel and naming off the roster of survivors. I’m going to
spare you that pain and instead thank a few people whose devotion to this fan
fiction feature on my site kept it going to the bitter end. They are:
Riley Byrne, my one-time collaborator, interview subject and creative mind between Sleptember and Justifiable Culturecide;
Matt Casey, a Godzilla and Amanda Palmer fan who
writes about video games in a satirical fashion at the Awkard Glitch;
Cameron Suey, who I’ve interviewed before and who
posts his awesome short horror fiction at the Josef K. Stories;
and Jose Bawagan, who doesn’t have a blog that I
know of but is a member of the Canadian Navy so that’s pretty cool.
To everyone else, thank you all for reading. I don’t
have any more fan fiction in my bibliography to poke fun of but sure enough I’ll
find something else. For now, I leave you with this.
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