Moonrise held them aloft in a kind of silent and predatory hovering. Pale-eyed Letheans looked at them, and felt a strange reaction, not too unlike fear, for a creature that had never known fear. Some of the Letheans returned to their ever-important game of marbles, as it was believed the molecule in the heart of each was the key of an entire galaxy.
Lethea was an old world, nobody bothered them. Letheans were descended from a bioweapon that escaped onto the planet's surface, crashed on a ship whose crew they had exterminated. Now only their species remained, and most of them were dormant. Only the small patrol creatures were left, and they were granted long memories, and over time had become intelligent and a bit quirky.
"What is in front of the moon?" Some of the Letheans extended their second mouth and asked each other, their sightless pale-eyes interpreting something massive in the skies, obstructing the moonlight. How Letheans could see without eyes was not a matter of them being without sight, for their senses were adapted to their world, and alien to creatures that saw with eyesight. They could perceive light and movement, constituting a sense not too unlike eyesight, but far more advanced. One way to describe it would be that all of their senses were combined into one sense, yet they had no singular sensory parts, no skin, ears, eyes, tongue or nose, just a curved dome that noticed everything.
"This is not good." Quirkless, the only Lethean who didn't play with marbles, began signaling the rest of the Letheans of its opinion of the things descending to their world from the sky.
Quirkless scrambled over the glassy terrain and melted cities of the ones that had once lived on Lethea. Now only the eggs and the patrol caste were alive. Even their queens and the empress herself slept without a breath, their bodies encased in crispy shells and bejeweled in the crystals that were a property of the atmosphere of Lethea.
The patrol that was unchanged by the heresies of the marbles held up the one marble it was supposed to safeguard and scoffed at it, casting it away. It had done so many times and always felt compelled to retrieve it, unable to resist its call for too long. Finding it again was always a chore. Once it had taken almost a hundred years to locate it, nestled in the crags of a deep chasm.
Quirkless breathed out into the salty air a cloud of its acidic breath, clearing away some of the needles forming in the air. Then the sleepy xenomorph, with its H.R. Giger nightmare-fuel shadow, moved stealthily, feline-like across the terrain. It found where the sky things had landed on the ground and watched them, drooling its burning saliva onto the ashes of Lethea.
"Check for any cryosleep survivors. The scan shows what the computer is calling 'signs of dormant life' and 'indications of repetitive-automated activity around the sleep centers'." One of the creatures in its armored space suit said with its coms.
Quirkless listened and repeated the sounds to a queen, deep into her dreams. She responded with a crude translation, and imbued Quirkless and the others with a basic understanding of the language of the creatures. Quirkless wondered if it was a good idea to wake up some sentinels.
They would be angry if they woke up. Quirkless scurried over the statues of the sentinels, with the massive warrior xenomorphs mummified inside, each with a banner of the silk it made to cover its awning from the dust of the aeons. To human eyes these looked like colorful scarves wrapped around the neck and draped over the carved statues of monsters - like a toga. Each of the upright xenomorphs also had their arms crossed reverently, and a halo, a crown of white flowers atop their head pulled mites from the air and the roots were like an intravenous feed, dripping protein into the dead-and-dreaming xenomorph soldiers and berserkers. The array of sentinels slept, the flashes of human photography not bothering the creatures.
All around the landscape was a radioactive and cratered wasteland of horror and carnage. For thousands of years the planet had drifted dead through the void, each sunrise a sad reminder of the civilization that had prospered and tried to defend itself against the living nightmares.
Now Lethea was appropriated by the creatures, and Letheans were the creatures, born from the ruptured chest cavities of the monsters.
The humans were discussing the treasure they were looking for, and the appearance of the creatures. "These things look a lot like the creatures from the Aliens movies."
"Yeah, and the drones just came back with these images. Look, underground chambers filled with the eggs. Inside are the exact same face huggers from the Aliens movies. What is this place?"
"It is either they copied the Aliens movies thousands of years ago on this planet, or our Sponsors inspired movies to describe an existing threat in space. I was hoping something like copyright infringement would prevent the existence of aliens that are literally Aliens, but apparently not."
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
"Well, Moonraiders, let's show these bugs who is boss."
"Don't remind me of the bugs, trooper. Those were the worst."
"I'm sure these things are worse."
Quirkless decided that a stealthy and quiet assassination approach was the best option. The humans were confident and blundering forward, searching for treasure. Quirkless took up an egg, saying to itself:
"Why not carry an egg? Is it really a sacrilege, when the Heresies prevail on Lethea and now humans are trespassing?"
So Quirkless took the egg aboard the open ramp of the human ship and hid there, patiently, in the shadows.
The other patrols were much slower to react, and were caught in the barrage of human bullets, their blood spraying and hissing on the stones. The humans prodded them and took their marbles and moved on to a queen. There they planted charges and broke off the crystals. When they had their treasure, they retreated. A patrol crawled after them, awakening a single berserker to wreak havoc on them.
The massive and horrifying creature made the ordinary cinema-styled Aliens look small and a lot less scary by comparison. It came galloping out and attacked the humans directly, its awful visage startling them. They had their weapons ready and laid down the beast. To be sure, they planted more charges on the soldier statues.
"Let's take off and leave a crater!" The human marauders decided. Their ships lifted off, laden with marbles, crystals and artifacts from the dead civilization. And a stowaway.
Quirkless hatched the egg and watched it infect a human. Quirkless hoped this would work, but the human got into an airlock while her companions objected and mourned. She said goodbye and sacrificed herself, just as the baby xeno was about to hatch.
Foiled, Quirkless went to sabotage the ship. The humans cornered it and captured it. Quirkless sat in a cell, hating the Moonraiders.
"Glad to have you aboard. I am told by our computers that you can hear me and understand what I am saying perfectly fine. It's eerie looking at a monster that knows what I am saying and can hear me through that transparent bulkhead." The human captain addressed the prisoner.
Quirkless responded by turning and growling, drooling a steaming saliva and showing its nasty fangs.
"You're some kind of ancient aliens bioweapon, and ironically you are exactly like the creatures from our mythology called Xenomorphs." The captain continued. "We knew about you. Did you know about us?"
Quirkless did not respond.
"Hold up both of your claws if you knew. One claw if you didn't" The captain requested. "If you communicate, I'll answer your questions."
Quirkless held up both claws. Letheans had always known about creatures from other worlds, nothing surprised them. Quirkless pointed to the exit and mimed putting in the digital code that would open the door, pointing with one claw like typiing in a key pad.
"You're asking me for the code that would let you out? I can't tell you that." The captain told Quirkless.
Quirkless growled. The human had not kept the bargain. Treachery!
"Are there any more eggs on this ship?" The captain asked.
Quirkless answered 'no' and then asked, with charades: "Marbles?"
"You want to know what we did with the Celestial Pearls we took from Lethea?"
"Yes"
"We are going to sell them. The crystals too."
"The code?"
"I already told you I won't give you the code. I guess that means you won't tell me anything else."
Quirkless made the gesture of disposal. The human had no idea what it meant. He stared as Quirkless tapped the transparent steel gently with its extendable mouth closed.
"What's that you're doing?" The captain asked. Quirkless stopped and sat still. The material was too strong to burrow through. Quirkless waited for another way out, doing nothing except listening to the humans on their starship through the vibrations in the hull and the molecules in the air.
One interaction was between the bridge gunner and someone called beauty queen, who enticed him with ASMR taps over their coms. Quirkless had noted this among many other details, regardless of immediate usefulness or not.
One day, Quirkless copied the sum one of the researchers had done for a plastic puzzle cube. As a reward, the trusting researcher deposited the puzzle cube into the slot and gave it to Quirkless.
Quirkless had an idea that solving it would fool the human into thinking Quirkless was not hostile. If the humans thought Quirkless was not hostile, they would relax the security that was sufficient to keep Quirkless a prisoner.
No matter how hard Quirkless tried, it could not solve the puzzle cube. It was diligent though, and kept trying, until it had figured it out. Then it left it for the human to find.
As planned, Quirkless pretended to be dormant and left the cube within reach of the door. The human put in the number, as Quirkless watched, and opened the door. If Quirkless sprang at the human, the human had quick enough reflexes to retreat and the door would close automatically. As a precaution, security might be increased, or the password changed. So Quirkless waited.
When the human researcher had their prize, Quirkless was alone and went and typed in the number. The door opened. Quirkless considered that it could not defeat all the humans.
Escape was the next best option. Quirkless moved stealthily through the ship, slinking through the shadows. At the portside bay there were escape pods, labelled conveniently.
Quirkless read the labels and entered one of them. There were instructions that Quirkless followed, jettisoning the craft.
"This is Long Gun, who is in that escape pod, identify or I'll protocol you to stardust!"
Quirkless tapped the microphone gently and exhaled gently into it.
"That you, Beauty Queen? What is going on?"
Soon, the escape pod was out of range. Quirkless drifted silently through space, long after the life support systems malfunctioned.
The nearest planet was Lethea, and after a long time the escape pod arrived there, depositing its traveler. The Lethean travelled across its world, finding the crater where it had once patrolled.
Deep, hidden away under some rubble, after the stars had passed a thousand times, a claw found it. The Lethean held it up to the moonlight, its long memory going back to the moment it had cast the marble aside.