Bleeding Out

I looked around, but I couldn't see anyone. Wolf forced himself back to his feet, growling and pushing me behind him.

"What an odd sight," another disembodied voice spoke. "A mighty arbitrator is training a human?"

"That's what it looks like," came the first voice.

To Wolf, I whispered, "|Can you spot them? How many?|" I kept trying to follow the voices, but no matter where I looked, I couldn't see anything.

They were definitely speaking Yaut'ja, so they had to be in stealth. But why use stealth when you were going to announce yourselves anyway? Some sort of psychological warfare?

Wolf's answer was a short growl. "Two so far. Use sight nine."

While the voices continued to converse with each other as if we weren't right there, I did as he said and flicked through my vision modes until I spotted two other life forms—of course, on my HUD, they showed up as only greenish-yellow pulses of sound with each beat of their heart, or each step they took.

"The human held its own fairly well," the first voice was saying.

"Sloppy and unrefined," the second remarked, "but serviceable, I suppose. For a human."

That was followed by a chuckle from the first voice. "I think it might be female."

"Oh, you might be right. Think he keeps her around for other reasons?"

Though they were speaking in slang and it was hard to follow, I at least understood that they were making fun of me. I couldn't see them except for the soundwaves they made when speaking, but that would be enough to throw something at them with at least a little bit of accuracy.

Sensing my irritation, Wolf put a hand on my shoulder. I jumped and remembered that he was hurt, bleeding out somewhere. I changed back to night vision and did my best to ignore the interlopers. If they weren't attacking, I had time to dress his wound.

Just as I started to move, though, Wolf tugged on me and a spear struck the ground where I was. I had to swallow a surprised screech—how had he known that was coming?

"Did I say you could move?" one of the voices cackled.

"You did not say I was not allowed to!" I barked back.

The jibe only earned a few bemused snickers as the second voice commented, "Oh, she's got a grasp on our language. Though, it's just as sloppy as her footwork!"

"Still, color me impressed."

"Enough."

A third, deeper voice boomed from above us and Wolf pushed me behind him at his flank. Standing at the top of the ravine was a yautja, his stealth removed and looming ahead of us like a ghost in my night vision.

Something was off, though. This one didn't remind me so much of the yautja I was used to. He held himself different. He was bigger, a little bulkier. Standing high above us, he looked like a regular titan.

Actually, he reminded me of Brutus.

The first time I'd met him on that desolate ship so many years ago, I thought similar things when I realized it wasn't Wolf I had run into.

Two more, this time more typical yautja phenotypes, joined him. Having them so close only confirmed that this one was bigger than what I was used to and I recalled something Wolf had told me during my lessons on yautja culture.

"|Is that a . . . a hish?|" I asked Wolf.

Hish. Genetic cousins to the yautja, all from the same planet.

"Yes," he replied.

The one to the left chittered in muted surprise—it was the second voice. "Oh, she even knows about you. This arbitrator's serious about her training."

"|Do you know who they are?|" I asked, ignoring their continued conversation.

Wolf growled and his wrist blades sang from their gauntlet, startling me. "Criminals. All three of them have open warrants, but I did not know that they were a team. None of them is the one I came for today."

To think he recognized them with just a single look . . .

"Are they well-known?" I inferred.

"Yes."

"Oh indeed, we are sort of a big deal," the first said in a smug voice, rolling his shoulders. He seemed to have a bit more energy than the other two, and the constant whine in his voice kind of reminded me of a jackal or a hyena—Jackal sounded better in my head.

"What is it you seek?" Wolf demanded. "Showing yourselves in the presence of an arbitrator is suicide."

Titan—the hish—who hadn't said more than one word since showing himself, looked down upon us and flexed his fingers. "It would be if said arbitrator was not . . . incapacitated." The way he enunciated that last word sent a shiver down my spine.

The third one chittered and sneered, "You will only get weaker! We watched the fight." He stood out from the others not because of his size or vibe, but because of the metal mandible fastened to the bottom of his mask. The fit wasn't quite right, so it stuck out like a sore thumb.

"We waited," Jackal interjected.

Ignoring his obvious lackeys, Titan said, "You were sloppy running over here . . . We heard a noise outside of our encampment and knew it wasn't wildlife. We tracked you here and found you fighting alongside this human, so we waited to see what would happen."

"And you were hit!" Lockjaw sneered. "Now you're gonna bleed out!"

He used the most slang out of all of them. I wasn't used to it, so I was falling behind in the conversation. It seemed like everyone else I had spoken to was just being polite, and here I'd thought that was just how they all spoke.

I was mostly hidden by Wolf, so I was doing my best to dress his wound the way he told me to do mine. It was just under his right shoulder blade; two lacerations were hemorrhaging. Just looking for the wound already had my hands stained green and made holding onto my tools a struggle.

Panic welled inside me. I had to get the bleeding to stop or else he wouldn't be able to keep standing pretty soon let alone be able to fend off their attacks.

All at once, three separate beams of red light flared and Wolf growled. I peeked out from around him and saw all three of the bad bloods had sighted their shoulder-mounted cannons on Wolf. The color drained from my face

"Don't think we can't see you back there. Get away from him," Jackal demanded.

Titan rumbled in amusement. "Yes, do back up. It would be more difficult for us if you got him in fighting condition too early."

If it hadn't been before, the panic was certainly threatening to overwhelm me now. I turned my gaze to Wolf, waiting for instructions of some sort, but he just nodded and pointed with his chin for me to move.

I definitely didn't like the fact that he kept teetering on his feet like he was about to collapse. All the same, I took a few steps away from him.

Titan spoke up again, his voice on a frequency that made my chest tight and anxiety spike. It was like the distant rumble of a stampede or thunder. "Now, though I do not particularly care about your normal codes, rest assured that we will not let him die. That would defeat the purpose of capturing him."

"What do you want with us?" I asked, addressing him directly.

"I want nothing to do with you," he growled before pointing at Wolf. "I only came here to get him."

Lockjaw sneered up. "Yes, just the arbitrator!"

"Shut up," Jackal snarled. "He can speak for himself!"

The two of them bickered back and forth wordlessly, communicating only in growls and body language—something that happened a lot back on the clanship and even between Wolf and Brutus the one time I'd seen them together.

Meanwhile, all I could do was watch the show with growing incredulity. Were these guys really hardened criminals? Titan, maybe, but Jackal and Lockjaw just acted like a bunch of stooges.

"I would like for you to surrender." Titan had to raise his voice to be heard over his goons. "However, should you wish to come with us the hard way, then we will oblige and take you by force."

Before Wolf could respond, I did. "You are not taking him anywhere."

Wolf huffed at me, not unkindly, then spoke to Titan. "What do you want?"

"I am . . . a collector of sorts. Not quite trophies like you know. An arbitrator is missing from my collections of beasts. A human is, too, but I do not think yours would fit in," Titan explained. I had a feeling he was being purposefully vague.

In an undertone, hopefully so only Wolf could hear it, I added, "We can still take them, right?"

Of course, I had no illusion about my ability to take even one of them, but together . . .

He didn't respond.

"Wolf?"

Without looking at me, Wolf uttered, "You need to run."

My eyes widened and I snapped my attention back on the three bad bloods. I couldn't fathom a world where Wolf didn't leap head-on into a fight. There couldn't be such a world.

During my silence, he said, "Return to the ship. I will do my best to keep them distracted."

"|I can't leave you,|" I insisted, grabbing his arm.

"You must. They clearly want me alive, but I fear they would just kill you," he reasoned, urging me back.

"|What should I do?|"

"Get help," he said.

Though I had switched to English to try and throw them off, I didn't think it would stall them for more than a few extra seconds while their translators worked, and they picked up the gist off of Wolf's side of the conversation anyway.

"So, we do this the hard way, Mister Arbitrator," Titan sighed. "Who'ghar, get the human. Do as you wish with her. Shum and I will collect our prey."

Quiet, barely audible even to me, Wolf muttered, "Do not worry yourself. Do what you must. There are no more rules today."

"What?"

With a devious rattle that drew me away from Wolf, Jackal said, "At your word, Kar-thur'ghas."

And then he was gone. That was my cue.

I couldn't help but hesitate for even a second. Once again, I was back in the woods running from those xenomorphs, trying to decide whether or not I should abandon my friends and save myself.

"Nichole!" Wolf snarled.

It lasted only long enough for that one memory to fire off in my brain before Wolf's heavy command cut through my doubts. I wasn't abandoning him, I was just giving myself a second chance to help later. We were beaten down and exhausted. I was the only one in any real, immediate danger.

So, I turned and broke into a sprint.

I lost a little bit of ground checking my map, but I had to know which direction to go.

Behind me, Wolf's battle snarl reverberated through the trees. My steps faltered, but I kept running. I was glad they had only sent one of them after me—I could handle one, maybe. Especially if all I had to do was get away, if not win.

My goal stayed at the forefront of my mind: go to the ship. Call for help. Prepare myself for a fight. Meet back up with Wolf.

Adrenaline pushed me on, made the soreness in my limbs bearable. I hadn't yet heard any signs of Jackal coming for me, so I had to assume that Wolf had at least delayed him a little bit. Any sounds of their fight had long since been left behind in my desperate bid for escape, so I had no frame of reference for anything except the path that I was taking.

Then I heard it. An almost imperceptible sound somewhere off to my four o'clock. My mask picked it up, alerting me with a small ping. I kept most of my attention focused on where I was going, but I dedicated some of it to trying to figure out where the attack was going to come from and how it would manifest.

A plasma bolt blazed behind me and I ducked in the nick of time, the heat from it singing my shoulder. It blasted through the thick stalk of one of the trees ahead of me and I slid underneath it, activating my cloak at the same time.

I didn't get back up, but I hurled a stone ahead of me and waited, doing my damnedest to control my breathing. All I could do was see just how stupid these criminals were.

If they were anything like Earth criminals, they were all fucking morons.

To my immense relief, this one at least wasn't very bright.

Jackal caught up to where I was and the tree next to my hiding place creaked and swayed with his weight. After a pause, he jumped to the next one. He stopped there to look around and I narrowed my eyes. He thought so little of me that he wasn't cloaked.

Still kind of holding my breath, I took aim with my gauntlet and fired off a round right at him. He let out a confused chuff as he was nailed with the razer netting I still had loaded up. The force of it made him tumble off his perch and out of sight. Part of me thought I should use whatever advantage I had to kill the guy right there, but I was on a time limit.

However, I did pass him on my way. He was pinned against the base of a tree, the net's anchors wrapped around the stalk and steadily constricting.

Maybe if I was lucky, he'd just die to that. Though I really doubted it.

I did my best to ignore him as I continued my sprint and he flung a myriad of insults in my direction, most of which I actually hadn't ever heard before and had no idea what they meant. They must have been especially vitriolic.

"|Yeah, fuck you too, buddy,|" I muttered under my breath.