Bug hunt

Jon ran at full speed down the dimly lit outer ring corridors of Zheng station, his chest pounding from the effort of his wildly beating heart. Running in the increased pseudo gravity of the outer most level of the spinning station was putting a strain on his whole body, but it had to be worse on his pursuers who had evolved on a world with a gravity even lighter then that of earth

After stumbling to a stop around a corner, Jon leaned back against the mold stained wall panel with his laser pistol clenched in both hands as he tried to slow his breathing. The run had left him drenched in sweat and out of breath, but running away had been the only way out of the sudden crossfire of the ambush.

The Breen had come out of nowhere, the Terran Defense Force Strike Team had been brutally cut down with pulses of the green laser bursts of the Breen rifles. Half the team had been struck down in mere seconds while the rest had either helplessly pinned down or sent scattering in all directions as the bug like aliens ruthlessly shot them down.

Jon had ran straight at two of the Breen, firing at them wildly with his pistol in one hand and screaming at the top of his lungs trying to throw off their aim, hoping that the other Breen would hold their fire for fear of hitting their own. Even as Jon had gotten clear he could hear the skittering of the Breen’s spiked feet as the two he had pushed pass began their pursuit, outnumbered and unable to rejoin his unit, Jon had headed down deeper into the station trying to outrun the relentless pair behind him.

After a last few gasps for air Jon finally took one long deep breath before slowly breathing out for a count of five, listening for the tell tale high pitched clicking that the Breen used to keep in contact with each other while hunting. Hearing only the silence of the long abandoned lower corridors of the station, Jon finally relaxed enough to wipe away the sweat from his forehead and slide down the wall to a sitting potion on the floor, his legs sprawled out in front of him.

Jon let his hands drop down beside him with one still clutching his bulky laser pistol as he slid his com unit from its case on his belt, the readout showed only two members of the unit still mobile, himself and Higgins, and even as he tried to figure out how to get the two of them regrouped, Higgins name blinked red and then went dark.

“Not good” Jon whispered to himself, then sighed and rolled his eyes to the heavens as the sounds of distant clicking began echoing from the corridors all around him “Really not good.”

Jon scrambled to his feet and slipped his com unit back in it’s case. As the clicking suddenly began to get louder him he realized only one of the Bleen was now sounding off behind him, the other had gone silent. Jon face twisted sourly “Clever little bug eyed monsters. Trying to flush me out of hiding while the other waits for me. Not today BEM.”

Memory tool switched over to a Z headed screwdriver in his hand, Jon dropped to his knees next to the access panel of the stations maintenance tubes and soon gained access to the cramped dimly lit passage. Pulling the panel aside Jon slipped within the tube and turned himself around, but even as he turned to pull the panel shut behind him he heard the outraged buzzing yell of one of his Breen pursuers.

“Oh crap.“ Jon began to scramble down the maintenance tube, head tucked in low and his back bent over as he headed for the nearest corner he could put between himself and the soon to arrive laser shots of the Breen. After a scrambling into a side passage he stopped and turned to look back the up the tube with his laser pistol gripped hard in both hands in hopes of seeing a nice fat live target trying to squeeze itself into the maintenance tube to chase after him.

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For a moment Jon could see only the unbroken light falling from the corridor below into the tube. Then the light slowly began to disappear as it was displaced by the short spiked shape of the Breed’s shadow as it cautiously lumbered up to the hatchway, for a moment Jon held his breath as the Breen stood motionless before entrance to the tube, then came an almost mocking series of clicks from outside the hatch as the Breen choose to keep well away from Jon’s line of fire while informing its brothers of their prey’s new location.

“Come on, come on. You’re a big bug. You like crawling around in dark holes.” Jon whispered, to himself, hoping the Breen would still chance entering the hatch before the others arrived “Take a chance, come in after the lone human. You can take him.”

Jon waited quietly in the growing silence, before sighing and dropping his head in disbelief at the distant sounds of another access panel being pried open somewhere in the tubes around him as the Breen once again began to surround his position before moving in for the attack. “Why can’t it just be easy, just once.”

Jon began putting some distance between him and the Breen at a fast crawl, pausing every few second to listen in an attempt to judge their pursuit before moving on.

The sound of a sudden excited clicking behind him nearly sent Jon falling to the floor as he frantically twisted around to aim his laser pistol back down the tube, for a moment Jon was unsure what had made the Breen so happy, then he noticed the trail in the dust of the maintenance tube floor behind him. “Huh” Jon grunted to himself.

After a moment Jon grimly began moving once again, with a clear trail it would only be a short time before the Breen caught up to him, but he wasn’t about to give up without a fight. With this new determination in mind, the sight of his escape route being blocked off by a Cleanser Drone brought a smile to his face as a for once a plan came together.

The Breen was annoyed by the cleaning unit coming down the passage before him, the human built machine almost filled the entire tube and would not back up out of his way and his weapon was useless against it. No matter what he did the machine would only stop and make beeping noises that hurt his delicate sound filaments until he finally crawled backwards down the maintenance tube and into a side passage out of its way. While the machine was cleaning up the dust they had been tracking the human down trough, it would only buy the human so much time, they out numbered him and would soon bring him down.

This last thing the Breen was expecting to see was the very same human he had been hunting clutching onto the back of the cleaning unit and aiming its weapon right into the Breen’s face, three quick pulses and the Breen went down screaming out it’s outrage and defiance.

Jon smirked as he pulled his feet clear of the storage rack behind the Cleanser and examined the belonging of the Bleen, he could not read the Bleen writing on is com unit, but as one of the spirals of symbols blinked out leavening only one spiral remaining he knew the fight had come down to just himself and the last of the remaining Bleen.

Knowing the Bleen would come running toward the sound’s of it’s brother yell, Jon circled around the now clean corridor looking for a clear shot at his last opponent. After several minutes of creeping around he finally found the last Breen in a maintenance room where several of the tubes met, it’s back to him as it stood beside the entrance to a tube waiting to ambush him. The Breen was nearly his own size but bulkier, the Bleen’s normally well polished hard outer plaiting was smeared with trails of dust, it held it’s short slim laser rifle in it mid hands while its true hands were slowly sweeping it’s compound eyes and hearing filaments clear of the dust that was obscuring it senses.

Jon slowly lined up his shot, laser pistol clutched firmly in one hand, his other hand held beneath it butt to steady his aim, one eye squinting shut as the other lined up the targeting sight of his weapon with the center mass of his opponent.

Then an iron hard hand clenched down on his shoulder.

“What the heck are you two kids doing down here?” Came the booming voice of the adult human dressed in the uniform of station security. “Didn’t your parents tell you no playing in the maintenance areas?”

Jon looked up gap jawed at the security officer, for the moment unable to speak, unfortunately the last Breen was a bit quicker to react.

The Breen gave a panicked shriek as it spun around, it’s laser rifle made a sullen sounding “Wurlp” sound with each pull of it’s trigger as it sent dozens of bursts of green lazer light flashing across the width of the room, three of them striking Jon sensor suit. Jon’s suit computer counted two of the shots as lethal and locked the joints of Jon’s suit before sending an “Out of play” signal to all of the human team’s com units ending the game with a victory for “Team Breen Supreme.”

“No fair.” screamed Jon “That’s cheating. Interference.” Tears ran down the nine years old face as Officer Jeffries steadied the suddenly frozen stiff child in his grasp. The Breen clicked and warbled as its com unit translated for it “Tough luck primate. Rematch?”