The starting gun's gone off—how can I not sprint?
Between pain and terror, the walrus-faced Weyland Corporation security chief broke into a desperate run.
He cursed his parents for not giving him four legs.
A hundred metres, two hundred, three… his ears no longer hurt, and feeling deserted his feet.
As the Arctic wind howled its war-cry, gritty snow surged up, lashing his face and forcing its way into his nostrils.
Snow fine enough to choke a Kenworth engine shredded his alveoli; blood trickled from his nose.
The thick down jacket let him keep going, unlike little Martha last night, who'd collapsed after a few hundred metres.
He couldn't understand—last night they'd ridden snowmobiles a mile from camp through the storm.
Yet today the devil behind him strolled along, calm as you please.
Not too close, not too far, never—BANG!
Li Pu, seeing him flag, put a bullet through his other ear to restore his balance.
He wanted to beg but heard the revolver's hammer cock again; terror drove him on.
One step, two, three… Twenty minutes later the work-site lights appeared, where Mr Weyland himself waited.
Inside were Weyland's best guards—ex-SEALs and Delta boys.
But as hope flared, strong hands closed round his fate.
Li Pu seized his throat.
He got a free ride on the 'crow-takes-airplane' express, hurled toward the sodium-lit site.
Lift-off to landing: lightning fast.
Between one blink and the next, he couldn't reach his head—because Li Pu had aimed him at a tall, man-shaped shimmer; the wrist-blades took it clean off.
WHUMP!
The creature sidestepped; the body slammed into a working hoist, jamming the main bearing.
A metallic SNAP shook the winch releasing steel cables.
One cable snapped, whipping free; two optically cloaked giants nearby leapt clear.
"&*@#￥￥%?"
(Chopper, what are you doing?)
"!@￥,%$#@!%%￥"
(Captain Kelt, not me—this human was flung from somewhere!)
"!@￥%￥@!@!!#"
(Captain, the trial-maze is live—we must begin the hunt.)
"&*!!@@#￥%*@#￥#@"
(Scar, I'm the Captain—don't think for me. But you're right: trial first. Into the maze!)
These three giants weren't human—they were Predators.
Their tech eclipsed Earth's, yet their culture revolves around the Hunt.
They'd come to Earth because each had reached one hundred years.
To claim adulthood they must complete an ancient rite: hunt a deadly species before the clan.
Only proven adults may mate; the rest die alone.
So, sensing something amiss, they still scrambled into the burrow—single for a century, they were starving for more than food!
"Strong swing! Against a human that blade would've broken the arm."
Li Pu, perched on a site hut, watched the trio vanish into a 30° tunnel.
Moments ago he'd butchered the scum who'd raped and murdered little Martha, saving their leader for this icy chase.
Partly vengeance—he'd never meant to let the man live.
Old Martha had helped him; he'd watched the girl grow.
Any neighbour's child suffering such horror earns curses; Li Pu had power, and inaction would rot his soul.
He also needed the spectacle: the dead were Weyland men, but Martha's kin couldn't flee Prudhoe Bay.
Here Weyland security is the law.
Without a clean ending, Martha's family would pay.
So he'd confront Mr Weyland while the boss was on site.
He trusted his powers of persuasion—he was, after all, a reasonable man.
Yet as he herded the brute toward the site, every human aura there winked out.
Worse, three inhuman signatures surfaced—things that smelled of not-people.
Hence the stone-throw.
He recycled the ugly chief into a projectile, lobbed him at the works.
Locking onto the aliens' aura rendered their cloaks useless; the 'stone' flushed three Predators.
Even cloaked, their tracks and the tunnel told him what waited below.
He remembered the film: a handful of Aliens—and crates of eggs.
If a face-hugger slipped out or some fool coveted them… "This little spinning rock is doomed without me," he sighed.
Still, he followed the trio into the dark shaft