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Black Tooth and Slug - who preferred to be called by his name, Dorraj, but was consistantly laughed at by the crew anyway - began to train for the next planetfall. Black Tooth wanted him to be ready to actually hunt, but the others were convinced that she was merely wasting her time. The boy was too passive, he was if anything too observant and tried to plan too hard. He didn't tend to just go out and do something.

But Black Tooth saw that he was doing this not because he was some kind of lackluster idiot. She thought that he merely needed more training. He needed to have the instincts shown off - one by one if need be - until they all came naturally to him.

Unfortunately, she would be only partially correct. He was certainly no idiot - in fact he might be as smart as their commander. However he was lackluster. He lacked a lot of the flair that hunters of their clan showed. He was probably too smart for his own instincts to truly be trusted. Slug wanted reasons. He wanted to know why they used a net in some circumstances and why not a stunner. Why they had only their barest body armor when they could either go naked and truly enjoy things (at the risk of being killed that much more easily) or in full body armor.

By the time they were ready to hunt on the small grey-green swamp world they'd located on their star charts, Slug's questions had gotten on the crew's nerves until they almost wanted to just leave him there alone and move along. But they had expended the fuel and they wanted to see the planet.

It was a Seeded world, a place that the Yautja had planted Xeno eggs onto some time before. That was the main duty of ships slightly larger than the one this crew ran - the Seeder ships had a Xeno Queen who laid eggs for them alone. Those eggs were then dropped onto a world almost haphazardly. Whatever they encountered, might either be eaten by the young, used as further breeding for the Xenos, or crossed in the way that sometimes they found happened. Big cow-creatures ideal for eating on one world? They become huge sharp-tailed hunters. Quick dogs? Dangerous and sly prey.

So far, the Yautja had only encountered two or three whole races of creatures which they would not hunt. Deemed too dangerous, or exhaustive, or too time consuming. They only did this of course, because far far back in their history, they began competing for their lands and rights, instead of killing one another for it. They still killed each other freely - but only in honorable combat.

That was another thing that Dorraj had issues with. "Honorable" combat seemed to include anything from having breakfast first, to which of them would be using the ship's restroom. Black Tooth explained to him that these were petty little disputes, and there was in fact no honor if anyone was killed while waiting for the bath.

But the hunt? That was something different. Lhalk'ck had to patiently put into words the things she'd known since young childhood. Since she had been raised among these hunters, her peers, they had always been able to just know. Now, she had to try and think of how to describe it.

"The hunt is what makes us who we are. It defines us," she said as they were putting together the gear they thought they'd be needing most. "We go and we prove to one another - and ourselves - what we're made of." Black Tooth slid an arm-brace onto her wrist, it held a number of small darts. "Without it, we do not have anything to call our own. We are without rank, without purpose."

"But there are many things to do other than hunt," Dorraj muttered. "We can't eat these things, the Xeno," he said. He was not aware that in nearly every culture which had been exposed to them, the Xeno were called something similar, something which meant "alien" because that was what they were. To everyone, everywhere. They were simply not "right." "So if they aren't food, and all we do with them is put scars on ourselves with their blood, and maybe an ... ash tray here and there... Why? Why do we do this?"

Black Tooth stood, painfully aware that she wanted to kill him, and stared at him. Had she been Human, her face would have been drawn into a passive 'concern'. But as it was, her mandibles closed, opened, and then closed again in consternation.

"Did you just not listen at all to what I've said? Without the proof that we are strong, fast, and smart? We are nothing. You are nothing, I would be nothing." She paused. "If we did not have the hunts? We would kill each other off." She finished packing her utility pockets, and checked that he had done the same. "Now, we must meet the others, and vye for the right landing spots."

Before Dorraj could say anything, she said, "I'll be taking you with me. You will not have to fight anyone just yet. You're not strong enough to do that."

The sticky plants and muddy surface of the planet got everything wet and covered in muck within moments. The elder members of the landing party relished this, it would render their invisibility and other tools only half-useful, and that was a challenge to such as they. It was an annoyance to the peer group which included Lhalk'ck, and it was frightful to Dorraj.

He knew better than to say a word, though. They would have to be silent, as the swamp where they landed was quieter than they all expected. It came back to life as their ship was gotten used to, their landing craft was tiny compared to their ship above the planet. They decided to use only one landing ship because there was only one visibly good landing area at all.

To Dorraj, this did not bode well.

His skin crawled with the leeches and slimy things that attached themselves to him in the first few minutes. Why weren't they bothering Black Tooth? Either they weren't interested in her thick grey-green skin, or she'd done something that kept them off her. He wanted to ask, but couldn't. Everyone would laugh at him.

But it was Dorraj that saw the Xenomorph first. They'd fixed their dna into the local species of carnivorous snakes - the Xenosnake was almost 20' long and bigger around than Dorraj was. He gave an instinctual grunt, which alerted the other party members. There was a stunning moment, when the third female aboard stood before the Xenosnake.

The angle was all wrong - she raised her weapon, a bladed axe-like short staff, and put it into the Xeno's armored belly. It pierced, and out gushed a wall of thick, green-black blood. It covered her whole, and she shrieked horribly with her death. It was almost instant, her scream became a gurgle quickly, and then went to nothing as the swamp ground claimed what was left of her corpse.

Three others unloaded their weapons at the Xenosnake, those smart enough to use electric weapons. It stunned the creature long enough for the commander to administer what looked like a death blow to it. Its long sleek head did not have eyes, but it did seem to have a traditional mouth and teeth that snapped even in death. It rolled to the side, still gushing acidic blood.

"This was unexpectedly large," said the commander gruffly. "Worth hunting?"

"We lost G'gmerz," said another elder. "She was good, but not fast enough."

"The boy alerted us," Black Tooth said, quietly. "Without that, it would have been more."

There was a faintly angry pause, but then the others nodded simply and acknowledged the boy's warning with a clicking of their mandibles.

It looked like that was all he was going to get for this trip.

"We do not need to risk losing so much equipment," said one of Black Tooth's peer group, as he dug through the wet mire for more of G'gmerz's equipment - all of it was either sizzling with the acid burnt through it, or clogged with the muck from the swamp itself. They could not rescue anything of her, so they took the head of the Xenosnake, and labeled this world 'high threat, hunt in pack only' on their journals.

"There are other places to get your first marks," Black Tooth said, to the dejected Slug. He'd been trying to convince her to rename him at least, to something more ... dramatic. He had saved them, in his mind that was worth a new name.

"Then where is the next one?" He paced around their barrack. "This is ridiculous. There could have been something on that planet worth hunting. Worth getting filthy for..." He picked up the still-drying net armor that had been scraped clean of any leech activity. His back had sores on it, from where they'd latched on. "And what was wrong with telling me that I should put this stuff on?" He waved a bottle of salve at her, and Black Tooth merely smiled with her mandibles at odd angles.

"Nothing wrong - I just figured you would see me using it, and use it yourself."

"I don't help myself to your things, you keep hitting me for it."

"This is a supply you can find in the cargo rooms," Black Tooth said. "If you want to, go get some for yourself. It won't help you now."

"No, it won't. Do we have anything for this?" He indicated the swelling marks.

"Probably."

"And are you going to tell me what to look for?"

"No," Black Tooth said.

"Why can't anyone on this ship - or in this CLAN - just write things down?" He stomped away, knowing that the concoctions in the infirmary would probably make things much worse on his skin. But it was either that, or try sleeping with the itchy swelling masses seeping onto his bed...

***

Slug, now named Caller, was to start sparring in the morning. The smaller of the males in Lhalk'ck's peer group had offered to help train him, since she was busy with monitor duties. He promised to go 'easy' on the boy.

"Choose up," Landslide said. Dorraj was getting used to calling people by their earned-names, since they were ready to hunt more frequently now. Formal names were for formal times, and the ship was hardly the place for that right now. Everyone was paired off with a sparring partner at least a portion of the day. Since they'd lost the one female, both genders were now evenly paired up with ten males and the two females.

Caller chose a flat-bladed short handled weapon, something that could smash as well as sweep. He turned it in his hands and looked at it, as Landslide chose a pair of short hand blades. Caller thought it was going to be a quick match.

They both wore protective gear since this was merely a practice match, and designed for both of them to get preparation for their next planetfall and hunt. They didn't need to lose anyone to sparring. Caller swung his weapon first, thinking to put Landslide off balance, but instead he opened his side up to a pair of quick jabs by his opponent. Suddenly angry, Caller brought the weapon down on Landslide's knee which was the closest thing to him, and almost cut the armor off it.

Three swipes by his blade, and two more punches from Landslide's small knives, and they were both blooded. They would go until one of them decided it wasn't worth raising a weapon. Because they were mismatched for length of weapon, Caller made the mistake of assuming early on that he'd be able to keep at a distance. But he forgot to crouch, and continually left himself open for attack on his belly. However, Landslide was known for his lack of good sense to keep his head protected, so at least twice, Caller placed the butt end of the staff onto his opponent's head hard enough to knock Landslide on his ass for a moment.

That brought gruff laughter every time he did it, and the group mockingly told them they'd change both their names to Butt if they weren't careful!

In the monitor room, at the top of the bridge of the ship, Lhalk'ck watched the stars and watched her sensors for anything worth picking up. There were two faint trails of markers left - like the ones that their own ship was leaving - but neither of them looked promising.

She knew that someone stood behind her in the doorway, and smelling the commander, she gave him a click of her mandibles.

"He does well, Caller." The commander said, "he takes advantage of his good points. Now you must teach him to remember his faults."

"He would do well to remember those, yes," Black Tooth said. "Am I supposed to be proud of him? He is not my brood."

"You are his Creche Mother, you should be proud. He lived and G'gmerz did not." The commander paused, "you miss her."

"Of course I miss her. And she owed me money."

***

The markers led to a world that none of this clan had ever been to. It was seeded quickly and recently, and left to wait by another clan's scouting Seedship. It couldn't hurt to check up on it, could it?

There had been no word about how many eggs were left, nor what the expected outcome would be. But the planet itself was far more promising in terms of wildlife and terrain than the last.

They did not know the name of this world as called by its inhabitants, but they called it "Seed0820". It was a watery world, but clean and wide with islands scattered across the whole surface. Big islands, but none bigger than perhaps a thousand miles long. Some were connected by mountain ranges or volcanic lands, but most were spread thin with bays and inlets to break up their borders.

It was actually a pretty world - it looked fresh, young. Several moons, but they were far and small, and scattered so that their tidal influence would not overtake the smaller islands. It was inhabited, the charts said, by 'yautja-like' bipedal folk, as well as an assortment of small and large reptilian/mammalian forms. Sea animals as well as large fliers. There were dangerous plants, their charts said, and large insectoids which could unexpectedly swarm.

"I would bet they swarmed on at least one Seeder party," Caller said, and surprisingly to Black Tooth, the others nodded in agreement. "Large fliers," he said absently.

"Something to watch for, in the skies, then," said Black Tooth. "But nothing about what species they intended to seed." She gave a snort, "pfuh - amateurs."

"Well," the commander said as he guided their ship into orbit, "amateur or not, they might have given us something important."

"I want to fight for a spot," Caller said to Black Tooth, quietly. "I want my own spot. Not just tagging along with you. I've been doing well with the sparring."

Black Tooth's mandibles spread, and then narrowed. "You think you can earn your own way?"

"I want to try, and even if I don't win, I'm still going. Last in line or first, it won't matter."

"Then why fight for it?"

"... Because it's time I did."

At that moment, when he was walking away into the sparring chambers to fight for his walking rank, Lhalk'ck was proud of her creche-child.

***

"He fought like he meant it," the commander said, "but with a broken leg, he won't be of much use."

"It is only broken because I did not stop when he did," said Bellowing Sky, "For that I am sorry. It is not honorable that I go and he stays. He fought me into a corner."

"This world can't be all that much of a challenge," said another peer, "Black Tooth, will you sponsor him on the trip?"

"With a broken leg?" She asked, surprised that he would even say such a thing. "I'm not carrying him."

"I do not need to be carried," Caller said, "I am all right. My leg does not hurt, I feel good."

His lower leg, just over the ankle, was broken neatly by a fierce blow from Bellowing Sky. He had chosen a mace-like tool, while Caller had used a hand-held scoop shaped knife in one hand and a small round shield in the other. Bellowing Sky still had gouge marks where the knife had almost broken through his armor, and a faint shadow around his eye and forehead where the shield had come crashing down.

"I would say neither of you is in shape enough to come along," the commander said, and he looked them both over. "But you are right, this world is not looking very challenging at all. We can handle sporing plants, and certainly we can handle a few insects."

The group cheered a raucous noisy chant, and then donned their tools and armor. They would leave the ship unattended, for the moment, find a good quiet landing space, probably at a beach on a cliffside or a glade that wasn't surrounded by anything. If none came back to move the landing ship, it was pre-programmed to detonate and leave nothing. Their ship on the other hand would not blow up in orbit. That was something that few of their kind had ever had to deal with, and they assumed that this planet would be fine to leave it parked without checking.

No one pirated Yautja ships. No one was stupid like that.

***

"Of all the places to land, you have to put us here? Look at all this sand! It's going to clog everything!" One of the elders said.

The commander glared at him, and clicked his mandibles in annoyance. "You are sounding a lot like Caller," he warned. The others laughed. This island they landed upon was inhabited by the bipeds, they'd seen signs of irrigation through the plains on the north end and buildings scattered around - but they were few and far between. They should be no problem.

Unless they were the ones Seeded.

"There is always the chance that the Seeding has failed," the commander said in general to people, and specifically to Caller. "Since this world is listed as a newly Seeded. Or that there were no live eggs that found hosts."

"We can always hunt those," Caller said, as a dragon soared overhead. "The large fliers." He gazed after it, it was quite big, and had apparently come to investigate their landing. "Four feet and wings, long tail, biting head. It's a nice predatory animal. Big - it looks bigger than our landing ship."

The others agreed. The dragon was a large brown one, with paler markings on its belly. They could not know that it was normally ridden by Elokoi of Serpent's Reach Caer. They did not know that was where they were at all.

They thought they'd be needing to protect their ship from natural forces, and since the place was habited by apparently intelligent life, they put a cloak program onto the surface of their ship. It was camoflaged from all angles, including above, so the dragon circled for a while and then flew back up to the peak nearest.

"We should go that way," Black Tooth suggested, pointing after the dragon. "There might be more of them. I want to see them."

"So we are tourists now," suggested the other female with a mocking click of her mouth.

"Well, better tourists than lunch," someone else said.

They marched along, Caller was limping a bit, but the plastic cast on his leg and foot helped him along. Since the land was quite dry and only sparsely covered, they used their camoflage when crossing open areas. They encountered no one the first night, and only saw another dragon in the sky the second day.

The third day, however, they heard a strange noise. It was a clicking, almost making the females think of brood-children...

"The insects," one male breathed, as he pointed his staff-weapon at them. "Look at them... that's a swarm..."

The ants broke out from a fissure in the tan-brown ground, they must have an underground colony. They were headed another direction - away from the Caer peak, away from the habited areas - so the group did not fuss with them. Since it looked like the ants knew where they wanted to go, and headed off into one direction with purpose, they were probably hunting for food to bring back for their queen and young.

"So," Black Tooth said to Caller, as they straggled in the rear of the column, "why not go into their colony and hunt what we can there?"

"Because that would be suicide. Even if those are gatherers, they surely have warriors like any good hive. Within the colony, they'd be protecting their queen." Caller said, "like the Xenos would. They didn't get to the insects, that is obvious."

"It is," Black Tooth said. "I wonder where those big fliers roost..."

"And going after a nest of those is more intelligent than after a colony of swarming bugs?" Caller made a noise, "that's suicidal, Black Tooth, that's just crazy. They are large!"

"They're ... kind of pretty. In a way."

That the Yautja could appreciate the form and style of dragons might have surprised anyone. But not each other, of course. The other female agreed, that if they weren't good to hunt, which they doubtless would be, those dragons would probably make exceptional pets. Guard animals.

On the fourth night, the group camped down in a cavern that was about one third up the mountain's side. While it was walkable, the island wasn't as small as it looked from the sky. The peak could be reached in another couple days walking, with a group. With only a single or pair of them, perhaps less. That was at a cautious walk, too. Since they were Yautja, they were always cautious.

One of the party had been exploring their cavern den, and called the rest over.

"What is it Echo?" The commander asked.

"The Seeds - they've been opened," Echo said. He was one of the younger members, but tall and strong. His flat skull armor pressed down as he crouched, he instinctively protected himself when looking at the eggs.

There were about a dozen eggs, but several were apparently trampled and dead. One or two were clearly hatched, while another scant few had not yet opened. They all stayed clear of those.

There was little sleep in the camp that night.

***

They continued the exploration of the caverns because the cave system seemed to open up toward the peak. It was better than roasting in their armor outside, certainly, but dark, so they were using their infrared lights. They could see better in the dark than most creatures, and they saw traces of creatures having been moving through this cavern before.

Clearly, they were set to hunt Xenos. But it didn't look like Xeno tracks - there were no telltale scrabbling marks where the face-huggers would have grappled with their hosts, no signs at all of death following. Where had they gone?

After a day more of climbing inside the cavernous mountain, they found out.

It wasn't quite what any of them expected. In another great, dark cave, where sand draped on the floor in great waves, was a nest of ... almost Xeno eggs.

They were big, much bigger than the ones down in the first cavern. And...

They were being attended to by what appeared to be a XenoDragon cross.

Now they knew where the eggs had gone...

Come, come closer. I ... why do I remember you? The Queen-dragon said. She was Xeno, clearly, for her head looked nothing like the dragons otherwise. She had the eyeless carapace on her head, but...

"She spoke to me, in my mind," Caller said. "Can they do that?"

"They can, apparently," the commander said, backing away slightly. "What did she say?"

"... You didn't hear?" Black Tooth said. The others shook their heads.

I spoke only to you. The others... they are not worthy of my children. You may prove to be so...

Black Tooth, Lhalk'ck, and Caller, Dorraj, approached. The sunlight that came into the side portion of the dunes chamber was almost blinding after three days inside the mountain.

"She said that she only wants us," Dorraj said, puffing himself up a bit.

"Well you can have her," said Bellowing Sky, "I'm going after one of those other small ones."

You will do no such thing!

It was a voice that all of them heard, yet did not 'hear', inside their minds. It was a different dragon. Another queen, but this one was a golden color, and her head peered into the chamber. The Xenodragon hissed a bit, but held her ground.

I want those two. The others will hunt you.

Not if I can help it, Oleath bespoke to her guest egg layer.

"What is going on now?" Said a human woman, whose words meant nothing to the Yautja.

One of them mocked her with her own words, repeated back to her the way that they were so fond of doing. Humans were prey, but this one was ... pretty strong looking.

"what is going on now?"

The woman paused, glaring at the group of Yautja with narrowing eyes. "Oleath? Translate."

"oleath-translate"

She wants me to tell you that you're tresspassing, but you are going to stay for Ivasheth's hatching. That is Ivasheth. Kyra, I sense confusion - they hunt creatures on worlds like this. They are dangerous - to you too.

"So are ants and look what that gets them." Kyra glared again, "it gets them dead, you translate that too."

Oleath did so, to the grumbling of the group.

Black Tooth and Caller approached, and Black Tooth took off her helmet. This obviously shocked Kyra, but she was the Caerlady for a reason. Sensible people, those leaders.

"You can translate for us?" Black Tooth asked of the big gold.

I may too, the voice of the blind queen came.

"We will stay? But why? What is it you do here?" Caller asked. To him it looked like the human rider of the gold was intrigued but ... disgusted? by them? Why disgust? She was the ugly one, with those little flappy things on her face and those huge half-blind eyes...

We bond, we take a life partner, to share. Your ... Xeno-things, they do not normally do this?

They do not, that queen said. But I do, and my children do. You may ride us, we will be paired for ...life.

Black Tooth and Caller looked at one another in surprise.

"I bet you don't bond, I think they'll eat you," Black Tooth said.

"You're just spiteful because I would have won my own spot in the party," Caller said. The dragons did not bother to translate, it was quite clear what they'd said - or the gist of it anyway - to the humans present. Others had arrived.

"It looks like we've got a group staying," Kyra said to one of the locals. She indicated that they follow, and with some hesitance, they did.

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