Skeleton Crew

<p>Ramon took the rock he had found and started striking it with his knife. He didn't know if the rock was a flint rock nor if his knife was pure steel, but it would have to do considering the circumstances. He smiled to himself when he saw a tiny spark. He kept striking it near the kindling he had gathered. Eventually the kindling caught fire and he laughed softly. He let it burn for a good while before he reached for one of the sticks in the kindling. He brought it up to the cigarette he had been holding in his mouth and lit it. Ramon inhaled until he began to feel lightheaded and slightly euphoric, he could feel that he hadn't tasted one in a decade. It was almost like smoking for the first time. Ramon exhaled, releasing the smoke, and stood up. He then started kicking some sand into his small fire to kill it.<br/>"Seriously? You start a fire for a goddamn cigarette?"<br/>"It's the little things in life we have to enjoy, you know?" Ramon replied and turned around.<br/>A short and skinny man had approached him from behind. He didn't know his name and he didn't want to bother asking. They'd been put in the same pod and the man had been yelling uncontrollably the entire way down, much to Ramon's annoyance. Why travel to the stars if you can't handle re-entry? Civies always annoyed him. Always panicking at the first sign of danger.<br/>Ramon scratched his beard while taking another puff out of the cigarette. "What do you say, Fish? Aliens or rebels?"<br/>"Excuse me?" the man asked.<br/>"Nevermind. Let's move." Ramon finished his cigarette and threw it to the ground. 'Too fast.' he thought to himself. It was too shortlived, he wanted another one already.<br/>"Watch your feet, Fish. God knows what the fuck is on this planet."<br/>"My name is not 'Fish'. It's–"<br/>"I don't remember asking, FISH." he cut him off. "And I told you to move."<br/>"Fish", that's what he called him because this man was a fish out of water, Ramon thought it was funny no matter how stupid a nickname it was. Ramon started walking without bothering to check if the civie was following him. He did hear some fumbling behind him so he assumed he was following. He twirled the knife in his hands and pondered what to do next. They had no way of communicating with anyone, no supplies, and no clothes to boot. Both he and the man were in nothing but the attire that they woke up in after cryo, which was pretty much nothing but underwear. <br/>"I can't believe all you got was a knife."<br/>"Oh believe me, brother. I WISH I had a gun. Unfortunately a burning ship on a rapid descent doesn't give you any time to reach the weapons bay. Instead all you get is the shitty knife in your locker and it gets you paired with some schmuck that's afraid of his own shadow."<br/>The civie was visibly annoyed and offended at his words. Ramon couldn't care less that he hurt the man's feelings and kept on moving. He heard the man say something under his breath but he didn't bother to ask what it was. Ramon understood that they were in a terrible situation; no supplies, no clothes, no communication, an unknown planet, but he couldn't help but wonder if the man could shut the hell up for one moment and give him some peace.<br/>"Do you have any clue where you're going?" the civie asked.<br/>"Does it LOOK like I've got a fucking clue what I'm doing?"<br/>"Well... no."<br/>"Exactly. Now PLEASE shut the fuck up so I can TRY and find the landing party the captain mentioned."<br/>"What makes you think the landing party made it?"<br/>Ramon sighed heavily and scratched his head. He turned around and looked at the man straight in the eyes. "Come here." he commanded.<br/>The civilian approached him slowly, somehow managing to nearly trip on nothing. <br/>"My name's Ramon. Ramon Estrada." he said. "Yours?"<br/>The man was silent for a moment.<br/>"Harold Smith." he finally said.<br/>"All right Harold, here's how it's gonna go; we're gonna go and try to find that landing party and we're gonna be VERY careful. And if I hear any type of complaint from you I'm going to punch your lights out and leave you for dead. Deal?"<br/>Harold stared at Ramon in disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it almost immediately, choosing to stay quiet instead. <br/>"This'll be fun. Let's go." said Ramon, and both men began their journey without knowing their destination. <br/> ---<br/>Yeira didn't know what was going on. Everything seemed like it was blurred. She couldn't hear anything either, it was all muffled. The only thing that she was sure of was that she was being dragged. Did the rest of the team make it? Did they die? What happened to the creature that caught her earlier? Did that thing die? <br/><br/>Yeira tried to lift her arms to struggle against whoever or whatever was dragging her. It took her a moment to realize she was never going to use them anymore. Her left shoulder had been the one to be struck by that spear one of them had thrown, something was broken for sure. Her right arm...that was the one she had held the grenade with. Her hand was gone, all that was left was a mess of bone and flesh. Despite all her injuries, she couldn't cry in pain. She felt numb, she couldn't move or scream. It was almost as if her body had given up.<br/><br/>Yeira felt something on her back, a tree perhaps, seeing as how the dragging had stopped and she was sitting upright. She tried moving her head to find who had brought her here, but her body refused to listen to her. It took her a few moments to notice the distortion in front of her, it was moving and she felt it staring at her. Yeira finally managed to turn away, slowly, but she finally managed it but all she found was a headless body next to her. She tried to pull away but she couldn't and now she was regretting she had tried to turn her head. It didn't take long for her to find the nametag on the body. It was Aizawa's. Tears fell down her face.<br/>"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she managed to say. <br/>The distortion approached her and slowly became visible. Another one of those things was in front of her, only this one seemed different. Its skin tone was slightly darker than the one that had attacked her and it was bulkier. This one was a lot more muscular than the other and it carried more weapons compared to the other. Its mask didn't have a skull like the other one, instead it had what looked like tally marks all over it. Suddenly blades came out of its wrist gauntlet, but it didn't look away from her. It took the blade to its mask and made a new mark on it. It didn't take her long to realize that it was letting her know that she was that mark. Yeira knew there was no point in yelling for help, there was no guarantee anyone was nearby to hear her. All she hoped for was that it was quick and painless.<br/> ---<br/>Agile Blade struck the heretic's left thigh with her combistick and pulled it out violently. The Yautja screamed and tried to attack her but by the time he turned around she had already backed away several feet. The heretic was too busy trying to collect trophies that he had ignored what was going on around him. Agile Blade didn't like her position though, the area was too open so her typical way of fighting was out of the picture seeing as she had no time nor the chance to lay any sort of traps. <br/>The heretic stood up slowly and roared at her, in response she struck the ground with her combistick and left it in place. She released her wristblade from her gauntlet and assumed a fighting stance. Agile Blade had to be careful, her opponent had a better arsenal than her, including a plasmacaster. With the injury on his leg he'll most likely want to keep her at range since fighting up close would be a disadvantage for him. Before he had a chance to even think about using his caster Agile Blade closed the distance between them forcing him into hand-to-hand combat. Thankfully because of their size the Yautja were slow compared to her. <br/>The heretic attacked with his combistick but his movements made it easy to dodge, and by the time he had finished with the motion of his attack Agile Blade had already managed to strike his abdomen with her wristblade. Unfortunately his skin was rather thick so all she did was give him a flesh wound. She struck with a backhand slice and just barely missed the valves on his mask. The heretic hit her right in the gut and knocked the air out of her, knocking her back a good four feet in the process. Yautja were definitely slower than her but when their hits connected it reminded her how much of a difference in strength there was. <br/>Agile Blade gave herself a moment to recover. She landed right next to her combistick, pretty much right back where she started, picked it up and put it back in her belt. In that moment the heretic did the one thing she didn't want him to, he decided to use his plasmacaster. Before he had any time to target her she pulled out her shuriken and launched it at him. The Yautja ducked and Agile Blade took the chance to close the distance once again. She pulled out her knife and managed to stab him in the same gut wound she had caused. She pushed him back a few inches and hit the knife's hilt to push it in even further, yet the heretic didn't scream in pain.<br/><br/>Before she could pull out the knife and hit him again he managed to jab her knocking her to the ground, she swore she heard her mask crack with that hit. Agile Blade got on her knees to recover, but at the moment there was only one thought on her mind, 'please don't get stuck on a tree'. She felt a hand gripping her neck and lifted her off the ground. Despite several injuries he still managed to pick her up with ease and with one hell of a grip. <br/><br/>The heretic roared in her face, but she did nothing. The reticle on his mask turned on and his plasmacaster followed until the three dots were aiming at her head. And there it was, the sound of an object cutting the air. Agile Blade smiled to herself. The heretic was so focused on killing her he ignored the oncoming shuriken from behind. <br/> ---<br/>Yeira watched as the big alien fell to its knees. All she heard before it fell was something like a blade cutting through flesh. The top half of its head fell off showing a clean cut. What the hell kind of blade cuts straight through flesh and bone with ease? The smaller of the aliens dropped down to its knees and caressed its neck. <br/><br/>This one was different from the others, it wasn't scaly and it didn't have any blemishes like the rest. It was a whole foot or two smaller than the others, it looked to be about Dutch's size and he was already six feet tall and then some. And...it looked like a female. It was slender and didn't have nowhere near as much muscle mass as the others, it wasn't at all lanky it was toned but it was obviously not at the same level as the others.<br/><br/>The alien finally recovered and immediately started to rummage the dead one's body. It picked up that thing that had been mounted on the dead alien's shoulder, inspected it, and discarded it. She could tell from that distance that its weapon had also cut through it. It turned the body over and Yeira saw it pocketing a couple things but she couldn't tell what exactly. Eventually it stopped and left the body. It stood up and walked back for some reason and it stopped again. This time it knelt down and picked up something from the ground but Yeira only saw what it was until it turned around. It was some kind of disc with several curved blades coming out of it. That's what killed the other one. The dead alien had been in front of her most of the fight so she hadn't seen the alien throw it.<br/><br/>The alien started walking towards her with weapon in hand. Yeira started to panic, her breath became quicker and now she was desperately trying to move and run away. It walked over the dead alien's body and came to a stop right in front of her but it didn't kill her. Instead it knelt down and pulled out a small box. It opened the box revealing several items in it. The alien pulled out a small vial with some kind of liquid in it and some weird looking device. Before it moved on it simply put one finger in front of its mask; be quiet. Yeira nodded. <br/><br/>The alien opened the vial and dropped some of its contents on the wound on her shoulder, but Yeira didn't feel anything. It leaned her forward and did the same to the wound on her back. Once it finished it simply discared the vial and moved on to the weird device. Yeira didn't have a chance to wince or yell, the alien placed its hand on her mouth to cover her scream. She felt a sharp stab on her wound followed by her skin being pulled together. It took her a moment to realize that the alien was stitching her up. Yeira chose to accept it and held herself as it stitched both front and back wounds. <br/><br/>Aftet all that painful treatment the alien looked her over once more, eventually locking its gaze on her arm. It shook its head. Yeira smirked.<br/>"Guess even aliens can't help me grow back a limb right?"<br/>They both remained silent after that. The alien turned around, probably contemplating leaving her like that maybe even regretting helping her. It quickly turned back around and looked her dead in the eyes. Yeira didn't say anything and neither did the alien, not like she was expecting it to anyway. It then stood up and removed something from its field kit, a small vial with a thin needle on one end. The alien twirled it around, clearly contemplating if it was even worth using it. After a few moments of it being lost in thought, the alien turned around and started messing with the dead one's body again. The alien was rather quick unlike the first time when it took its time looting anything useful from the body. <br/><br/>A few seconds later it came back towards her with a stick in its hand and knelt down in front of Yeira again. It held it in front of her and spun it for a bit. It stopped and tapped something, a button of sorts, and both ends of the stick expanded. Yeira understood immediately, it was teaching her how to use it. Yeira nodded and, seemingly satisfied, the alien stuck it to the ground leaving it upright. It pulled out the vial once again, but before it used it, it pointed in a direction. It was telling her where to go. Yeira simply nodded again. It then pointed directly at the sun and slowly moved its hand downward, Yeira could only assume it was telling her nightfall was coming. And with that, the alien left the vial for her and began walking away. <br/><br/>Yeira understood her options; stay here and slowly die, or possibly get killed by another alien, or take that vial and start heading in the direction she was instructed to follow. But the risk was traveling at night. She already had a hard enough time trying to spot these aliens in broad daylight she couldn't imagine what it would be like at night. <br/><br/>Yeira didn't hesitate and put that vial in her neck, injecting all of its contents. Her heart started pounding rapidly, her body was tingling, and she felt like she just got hit by a jolt of electricity. 'Adrenaline. Alien fucking adrenaline', she thought. She stood up slowly and approached Aizawa's body. She wasn't a believer but she still did a quick prayer for him. Yeira looked around for his tags but they were nowhere to be found on his body. She cursed the aliens for desecrating his body like this. <br/><br/>She apologized silently and moved his body around hoping to find anything useful. His comms were gone, gun missing, all he had was his knife. She apologized again and took the knife from his body and used it to tear off part of his clothing. She bit one end of his shirt and with her left arm she started cutting a big enough piece of cloth. Once she was done she wrapped the cloth as best she could to make a sling for her damaged right arm. The adrenaline thankfully nulled the pain so she didn't feel it every time she had to tighten up the sling. <br/><br/>Yeira stood silently for a few moments and prayed for a safe journey. She still didn't believe, even less so considering the shitshow she was in, but if it comforted her when her parents did it it sure as hell was going to comfort her now when she actually needed it. She collected her thoughts and pulled out the spear the other alien had left behind. Yeira looked for the button on it and pressed it which caused the spear to close up again making it go back to the size of a stick.<br/>"Vaya con Dios." she whispered. And for the rest of the day, she walked.</p>