She was not born on their homeworld. In fact, she did not know anyone who had been born there. They'd all been born in space as long as she could remember, and at her 24 cycles of age she could say that she'd met a few people. Many of whom she'd killed or watched be taken down by their 'prey'.

Lhalk'ck grumbled that she'd never wanted to be a creche-mother, she wasn't cut out for it. She didn't even like males, who was she kidding? She didn't even like their own kind let alone.... She shook her head again, her long braided and clip-held hair dancing over her broad muscular shoulders.

"I will not do this," she said, in the tongue common to their race. "It is not my time, and it is not my duty. I have to hunt."

"You have to do as I say, bitch," was the commander's response. She almost turned to strike him, and if any of the crew had been present they would have put even money on either of them to beat the other senseless. But Lhalk'ck did not want the responsibility of handling their ship, or commanding their crew, so she refrained. That was the only reason. She and the commander had never gotten along, and they never would.

"Then what is it you'd have me baby sitting, commander?" she asked, spitting the words out. The way she said it made it sound like he was asking her to squat over a volcano and enjoy the results.

It was close enough.

"Why must I be taken care of?! I am old enough to fly my own ship! I can manage on my own!"

"Enough, whelp!" The commander yelled, and his mandibles were moving angrily when he reached back to strike the young Yautja but when the youth stood his ground, he gave the equivalent of a broad grin. "You're learning."

The young male bloated himself, standing up taller. He hadn't even earned his first blood scars yet, and he was acting like this?

Lhalk'ck snarled at the commander, "he is arrogant, and young, and untrained. You would strap me together with this puppy? He is hardly worth a moment's beating."

"Tell that to the clan leader," the commander said over his shoulder as he left them in their barrack, "he's his son."

Lhalk'ck turned her gaze upon the preening child of the clan leader, and groaned. Her small eyes rolled a bit, but he didn't even catch that small hint. He would have to be taught the hard way, then. That this was a ship full of people who pulled their own weight. She was not going to help him if he fell behind. If he killed something, she would not take the credit. That was their way. But still... An untried youth.

What had she done to deserve this fate?

The boy glared at her, and his mandibles flared. He wasn't even aware of it, he was so uncultured. Clan leader or no - this was no way to greet your creche-mother. Lhalk'ck audibly snarled, and then swung her arm. She impacted the young male straight on the side of his head, and he hadn't even bothered to try blocking her.

"Dorraj, you will be known as the Slug! You are slow, and you leave a trail!" She yelled. The youth regained his feet, scrambling up, but he realized - something inside him did anyway - that she was much stronger, much faster, and surely more well trained than he. He could learn from her, if he didn't get himself killed by her first. He lowered his wide forehead to her, and clicked his mandibles to her.

"I apologize, creche-mother, you are right. I am slow. Much too slow." His tone said that he was annoyed by this posture, but he'd been told what to expect. He wasn't sure why this royal pain in the ass woman was chosen to help him become a true warrior, though.

"Slug, you are going to learn to be fast, and if you do not learn, you will die. Do you accept that?" Lhalk'ck demanded, her fists balling up and displaying her anger. It wasn't truly directed at him, and he knew that much. But at least she wasn't striking him the way his father would have...

"I accept it, I do not know what I should call you, creche-mother." His head was still bowed down, so he didn't see her twitch of feral glee at this question.

"You will call me the Black Tooth. Because if I must bite you, you will be infected." It was a title she'd earned several years ago, but none of the ship's crew that called her by it were still alive. She missed it, a bit of tradition she liked.

"Then, Black Tooth?" Slug asked, "what should I do to learn?"

She kicked his chin, so that he would face her. His small black eyes focused on her face - she'd bent down closely after kneeing him. "You stay out of my way. And if you see me coming, you run. And after one hand of feeding cycles," she held up her claw-tipped fingers numbering five, "you have remained from my sight, I'll let you in to the barracks again. If I spot you, I'll hurt you. If I have to hurt you more than twice, I will kill you. Do you understand?"

He nodded, he wanted to say more, but Black Tooth had stood up and gazed around the room absently. Her own ebony and saffron eyes finally fell upon Slug.

"... You are still here," she faintly said, almost as though she had the Vapors and was about to faint. But this was clearly to her advantage. He stood, almost panicked, and the moment that Lhalk'ck was about to raise her fist to his gut, he'd bolted out of the barracks. "... Good boy," she said, and fixed herself something to eat.

Day One

It was hard for Slug to see what was going on. The warriors were just talking, but he heard some faint noise on the other side of the corridor. He hadn't become truly nervous yet, after all, it was only the morning of the first day of his on-ship exile from his barracks. He ought to just show her up. He ought to just walk right back up to her and demand that he be let back in, as was his status' right. His father was the clan's leader, after all.

He wasn't on the ship, though. They'd transferred him during a supply run, convienently offloading not only foodstuffs and weapon reloads but the young son of an old leader. Without his father aboard, Dorraj pondered that his position was a bit less... strong.

"I see you," Black Tooth whispered, from somewhere behind Slug. His little eyes nearly bugged out of his head. His short braids stood out from his head as he bolted from his hiding place, he skudded around a sharp corner in the ship's central meeting hall, and vanished into another corridor.

Lhalk'ck pulled up short in the meeting hall, as four of her peers watched.

"Winded already?" One of them jibed in his rough gutteral way. Their tongue was unpleasant to hear, apparently, by other races. Even though they shared so many similarities to other races, they just didn't understand the finer points of Yautjan speech.

"Hardly, Corcit, hardly..." Black Tooth said. She leaned against the wall, and listened carefully. The others went silent for her, then got back to their conversation while she pursued her prey.

***

Day Two

He wasn't sure when he was supposed to rest. So the whole first day, that damnable woman had been chasing him all through the ship. When would she stop for food? When did she sleep? Did she sleep?

It was almost getting to be too much, for the young male. He was only 12, half her age, and everyone knew that not only were the females a bit stronger and bigger than their male counterparts, they appeared to get bigger and stronger - and faster - as they grew into their maturity. It would be another decade before Dorraj actually could stand and look her in the eye. And by then, of course, she'd be another half-head taller than she was now...

Unless she got hit by something bigger than she was.

Unless....

Dorraj had found a good hiding spot between two walls and a bulkhead. It was a smallish corridor to begin with, so he was at the advantage there. She would have to squeeze through, while he could run. Either direction was good for him. He was hungry, and kind of dizzy from lack of sleep. He passed out, wedged in his hole.

***

Day Three

"What is wrong, old Black Tooth?"

"I'm not old," she commented, as she sniffed at the air. It was hard to distinguish anything on the ship of course, because there were always so many males and such interesting food. But the prey was still there... Faintly. "I'm just worried that the whelp has gotten himself killed without my help."

"That would be a pity!" Said another female, one of only three aboard the ship. Too many more females and the males would have to relinquish control... "Why deny you your fun?"

"That's right," Black Tooth muttered. "Why deny me?" She paused, clicked her mandibles, and turned to the other female, "why didn't you get this duty? You're in the same rank as I."

"Because I bore young already. You have not." She gloated, patting her long-flat stomach.

"Ah. Well then I guess this will have to do. I won't have to do this again, will I?" Black Tooth asked, "I hate children, you know..."

"So do I. I ate mine." The other female broadly opened her mandibles, in a laugh. Black Tooth wasn't sure whether she ought to believe her peer or not, since they rarely ate their own young in these civilized times.

... Day three, later on...

She sniffed around, and finally flipped on the visor - the heat detectors found him almost immediately. He was stuck between two walls? How in the world had he gotten there? Clever, but not too much - he didn't hole up with any food or protection.

And Black Tooth was good at this game. She brought a set of tools with her everywhere, all of them had some kind of personalized kit on them, and hers consisted of some repair tools in addition to her knives, stunners, nets and such. Since she decided to treat this boy as though she were hunting him, she was well prepared for this.

She unscrewed two panels on the wall, carefully and quietly. She didn't want to damage their ship, of course. The interior of the wall he was wedged in was now exposed. She moved a couple batches of wiring out of the way, and then swung the last panel open. He tumbled through it, landing gracelessly on the floor at her feet. He was awake, groggy, now.

The stunned look on his face was enough to make Lhalk'ck laugh, but she didn't waste any time in bringing down her hard fists on his chest. He doubled over with the first blow, and then tried to protect his head from her pummeling as she continued the beating.

"You are SLOW! You are SLUG!" She bellowed, allowing him a bit of time to decide what to do next.

Wisely, he chose to bolt again, down the corridor into the main hall. She'd give him a little time to eat, he obviously wouldn't be fun prey if he was undernourished and weak, now would he?

***

Day Four

"When will that boy learn?" Asked the third female, "he's wasting your time. Just kill him now."

"I'd like to, but..." Black Tooth expressed a bit of worry, "I don't want to anger our clan leader quite yet. I want to hunt, and if I kill his kid, what chance do I have of someday getting my own ship?"

"I thought that was the point of having him here," said a younger male, still a peer of the females. "I mean, he's never been on his own hunt before. How can he possibly survive? The boy's a loss."

"He's hidden fairly well," Black Tooth said, "until now."

She held his limp form in her clawed hand, dragged out of his new hiding place over the food station. That was a brighter move, he had access to a fairly stable sleeping platform and food. But also, he put himself into the smell mix again. Close up like this, Yautja senses were quite keen. Of course, putting the visor helmet on cancelled that quickly enough, but it was for other uses after all. He had to learn that too, if he was to survive.

Black Tooth was almost ready to admit that Slug was a lost cause, when she felt him move. She turned to look, and saw his foot, swinging up quickly!

She took the hit right in the face, spinning her off balance, and she lost her grip on Slug's shoulder. When he was free, he kicked at her once more, and then ran into the depths of the ship again.

Lhalk'ck sat up, rubbing her jaw. She blinked, "well, not a totally lost cause, eh? That was a good hit."

"Was he playing dead?" Asked the female.

"No, he was out. You know I don't deliver beatings half-assed."

They laughed, and helped their partner up.

***

Day Five

Slug sat behind a grill, between two large cargo boxes, and had a stun blade in his hands. Why hadn't he thought of this before? Why didn't he fight back that first day?

Because he was an idiot, he thought to himself. Because he was weak, and slow, just like Black Tooth told him he was. He was a slug! But no more! He would fight, it was the fifth day, wasn't it? After this, he was free. Right?

So he would become the hunter, instead of the prey. Right? That was how this would work. His father hadn't said anything about this kind of thing, really. Only that the process of becoming a hunter, a Predator, would begin as soon as his Creche mother determined it. Was this her way?

Black Tooth walked carefully, silently. It was hard, because sometimes her braided hair would click against her armor. She would tie it back in a real hunt, of course. When they were serious about it, or when their prey would be alerted by its noise, they always kept their locks which showed their age back.

She knew that Slug had come by here, through to the cargo bay. It wasn't the safest place for him, really - or her. There was always the chance that the big metal and plastic boxes would fall or something unexpected would leap out of them. They usually kept their seeding animals in cryo storage, but sometimes they had to leave them in the cargo bay because they were just too big for the holding fields.

She wanted to taunt him, to break his concentration and make him come running out. But also, she wanted to maintain silence. It would be a contest of senses and willpower. That was as it should be, with the best prey.

And of course, that was what he was, right now. Prey.

He wouldn't become a true warrior, hunter or anything more than a pain in the ass, until he'd actually blooded his kills and taken his first acid-marking. Her own marking was when she was younger than he, as many females were apt huntresses before their males. It was fading now, but the mark on her large forehead was like a triple swirl within a box. A tail joint, bigger than some that took their acid markings from the finger joints.

She was eager to get another. There were planets they would be passing on this run that had their seeding projects on them.

A noise brought her attention snapping back - how could she be so foolish? Daydreaming about planet fall when there was Prey on the loose?

She felt a grazing blow on her side, below her elbow. Turning, she saw a very angry Slug - he was furious that she hadn't fallen, pissed because...

"This stunner didn't work!" He spat, he looked right at her, through the grill. His mandibles worked around each other. "You're supposed to be out cold, now. Fall down at least. It was a good hit."

"It was a grazing blow," Black Tooth announced carefully, looking at how he'd merely cut one of the strands of her netting holding the armor plates on her body, "but if the stunner had been on, you are correct, I would be down."

"Then what's wrong with this thing?"

"Don't you know how to use a stunner?"

"No one has ever SHOWN me! They don't exactly come with instructions!" He whined, but he was still angry, and still holding a longer weapon. Black Tooth paused.

Then she started laughing, knelt down on the ground holding her side. "Aagh!" she said, mockingly. "Agh, my side! You little bastard! Foul whelp!"

He broke through the grill, leaping on top of Black Tooth with his full force. The bar of the stunner he held as a staff, since it was effectively useless as its true function. He pushed her chest down with it, snarling at her. He knew that she was much stronger, but his legs pinned her arms down to her sides. And for the moment, he did have the advantage.

"Why shouldn't I kill you! Why should I have to put up with you telling me I'm useless?! I'm not useless! I'm the clan leader's son!" He yelled, pushing the staff down harder, rolling it up to her neck.

"Because then you'd be having to fight three others - my peers - to get my spot..." Black Tooth said. "But as it is, I am obliged to sponsor you now..."

He paused, pulling back a little. "... what?"

"You're done, boy, Slug has known what it's like to be Prey. Since you know now, what it is we hunt, you should have more respect for the Prey." Black Tooth said. She sat up - without difficulty even though he was still on top of her - and slid her arm out from under his leg. "You've evaded me, and only taken two beatings from me, Slug. I'll come up with a new name for you soon enough."

She stood, and pulled him to his feet. "We're going to seek our seeded prey now, and that's going to prove whether you're really your father's son or just an accident of rutting."

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