Foster, Alan Dean Aliens Vs Predator War

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Lara hesitated for a second, then nodded. "Yeah. My gut says yeah."
Jess nodded, glad they agreed on her basic inten-tions if nothing else. Noguchi might be certifiable, but
she obviously meant well.
Before they could talk any more, the woman reap-peared, striding through the long grasses of the partial
clearing. She held two riflelike weapons in addition to the one strapped to her back. They looked
something like old-style machine guns with oversize grips.
"These are, uh, burners," she said, handing Jess one of the heavy weapons, the other to Lara. She
un-shouldered her own, holding it up for them to see the long, flat button on the front grip.
"Trigger. There's no safety, so be careful. No kick, either, but they ride high. They're kind of they
shoot a semiliquid pulse of ... explosive particles, I guess. I've I'm not much of a scientist, you'll have to
forgive my lack of knowledge here ..."
Jess held the ungainly "burner," remembering how big the creature that had attacked him had been;
Noguchi handled hers easily, obviously comfortable with the overlong barrel and thick grips. Jess was
sud-denly extremely glad that she'd decided to show up; she was something else . . .
Noguchi cleared her throat, looking between the two of them, smiling nervously again. "I'm sorry, I
haven't even asked your names."
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Amazing. She crashes a ship, shows up talking about traveling with a pack of aliens, and still blushes
when she talks.
Lara gripped the burner tightly, speaking calmly to the anxious woman. "I'm Katherine Lara, this is
Mar-tin Jess. The third member of our group is Brian Ellis; when the platform crashed, we lost track of
him. As for any others ... a private shuttle and I think a couple of transports got away before the station
went down, so maybe they're already safe."
Jess nodded, realizing that .Noguchi would need some background for their little saga to make sense.
He picked the story up, trying to keep it short. "There are these creatures aliens that have been
discovered all over the colonies. They're extremely dangerous, they can adapt to any environment, and
they breed like
nothing you've ever seen. Lara, Ellis, and I were part of an extermination team that was sent to a space
station a little over a week ago, to wipe out a nest of them. What we didn't know was that the station had
been de-liberately infested . . ."
Jess hesitated, feeling the same old rage rising up. ". . . by the company we work for. They wanted to
see how long it would take the aliens to kill four hun-dred people.Families."
He suddenly wished desperately that Briggs was still on Bunda, the rush of anger blocking out all other
concerns. Lara touched his shoulder gently, taking over. "We lost two members of our ground team, and
ended up here. They sent a suit an executive to see if we had the information about the nest spread,
but we don't, it got blown up along with the station and about a thousand aliens. Bugs, we call them "
Noguchi had listened to them without expression, but now she nodded, apparently unsurprised by their
story and what she said next was a shock that re-minded Jess of his earlier idiotic assumption, that
meet-ing this woman was the strangest thing that had happened, thatcould happen.
"I call them that, too. We have more in common than you know. To the Clan, they arekainde amedha,
the Hard Meat. They are what the Hunters usually Hunt and this world has been seeded with them."
Lara and Jess wore twin expressions of astonishment. Noguchi found herself marveling at the look of
them both, at the intricate, telling lines and planes of their faces. If yautja faces were capable of subtlety,
she'd never seen it.
Finish talking, there can't be much time left.
"There was even a bug mother on our ship," she said, nodding toward the groundedShell. "Probably
dead now. The Hunters seed entire planets with eggs and Hunt drones for sport. It's their entire culture
is
built around the Hunt, it's very much like a religion for them."
Noguchi sighed, shaking her head. "I thought they had rules against Hunting intelligent life. Against
Hunt-ing humans. It seems I was wrong."
Lara stared at her. "You mean they hunt bugs forfun?"
Noguchi nodded. "Apparently they started their Hunt in another part of Bunda, but it's still early. They'll
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be heading this way very soon. You haven't seen any bugs yet?"
They both shook their heads, and she was glad to note that both immediately started watching the dark
walls of jungle, alert to new danger. That they had been part of an extermination crew was good, they
wouldn't be entirely helpless against the drones, at least . . .
"What about your friend, Ellis?" Noguchi asked. "You say you lost him?"
Lara nodded, but Jess shifted uncomfortably, his bruised face set unhappily.
"He may have lost us," he said softly. Noguchi no-ticed that Lara didn't seem surprised by the differing
opinion, even though it was obvious they hadn't dis-cussed it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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