Lex tried to open her eyes, but her lashes were caked with snow. She had to blink several times to clear them.
She was on her back, looking up at the sky and the heavy, black, cast-iron vat still teetering on wobbly legs at the edge of the cliff, despite the earthshaking violence that had rocked the vicinity.
With a moan, she felt something digging into her back. The spear Scar had fashioned from an Alien tail and the shield made from their armor were still strapped there. Lex sat up and looked around. She and Scar were lying on the very edge of a mammoth crater that had swallowed the whaling station; only the huge vat for cooking whale blubber and the wharf and docks over the frozen harbor remained intact. Around the perimeter of the crater a few tiny shacks leaned precipitously, on the verge of collapse.
Lex got to her feet and gazed out at the devastation. Through the fog that curled around her, it was difficult to determine the full extent of the damage. But the crater itself was vast, stretching farther than she could see.
Deep down, near the center of the pit, Lex could make out a few of the timbers from the old buildings and a high-tech drilling machine lying on its back—all that remained of the whaling station and the Weyland expedition base camp. A dozen paces from Lex, a snow-covered building still stood, though it now leaned precariously. An oil lamp, no doubt lit by one of the expedition’s murdered members, still burned behind a frosted window with a warm yellow glow.
With an undulating warble welling up from within his throat, Scar rose and shook off the snow, to stand beside Lex. As she smiled up at him, Lex heard a dull plop. Then something hissed and sizzled in the snow near her boots. She looked down to see a great, bleeding chunk of Alien flesh—Lex recognized the grid pattern burned into its hide and felt relief.
More gouts of flesh landed in the snow around them. Still dazed, she watched Scar dig through the snow and carefully lift an object, which he cradled in his misshapen hand.
When Scar opened his fingers, Lex saw the grisly thing he held—a severed Alien digit, somehow thrown clear of the blast, its shattered joint still oozing acid blood. He held the bloody thing in front of her face, and shocked awareness dawned in Lex’s eyes.
She nearly recoiled from it, and what Scar wanted to do with it—but in the end Lex decided to accept the honor. She’d earned it, and after all, this final pain would pale in comparison to what she’d already been through.
As the caustic chemical burned her flesh, Lex winced but uttered no sound. The pain seemed endless as the Predator carefully traced the distinctive thunderbolt scar on her forehead.
For a brief moment, human and humanoid stood facing one another in the vast polar expanse, sharing a ritual that was already ancient when mankind was still living in caves and hunting wooly mammoths with fire-hardened spears and stone axes.
But the solemn moment was interrupted when an explosion sounded at their backs and they turned to see the Alien Queen burst out of the crater in a shower of snow and ice.
Snarling, Scar pushed Lex to the ground and hurled the last of his throwing disks at the slavering Hive Queen. The whirling blades slashed the Alien’s throat, severing tendons and opening a gaping wound. Acid blood popped and crackled in the frigid wind and drops rained down, to pockmark the snow.
One disk remained lodged in the Queen’s flesh. The other passed through her black hide and made a wide arc in the air, returning to Scar like a boomerang. But as the Predator reached to catch it, the Alien Queen lashed out with her tail and batted him into the side of the small building. Wooden beams shattered, and splinters impaled the Predator’s flesh. From somewhere inside the tangle of broken wood, smoke and flames erupted from the smashed lamp. Within a minute the entire building was ablaze.
The Predator tore himself loose from the burning debris and staggered to his feet, even as the Queen closed in on him. Before Scar could get out of the way, the Alien dashed the Predator to the ground and crouched over him, claws raised to tear him limb from limb.
But before she could deal a fatal blow, Lex hopped onto the Alien Queen’s back and let out a warrior’s shriek. Shield in hand, Lex lifted the crude spear over her head and drove the tip into the wound Scar had made. The blow was dealt with all the force Lex could muster, and the Queen howled in surprise. Hissing, her tail thrashing, the Hive Mother howled in agony even as she threw her crested head back, trying to dislodge the human.
Lex redoubled her efforts, driving the spear deeper into the Queen’s shiny black hide. Acid blood gushed in a great fountain, drenching Lex and rolling harmlessly off the shield.
Then the Queen rose to her full height, hoisting Lex with her. But still the woman refused to let go of the spear. Instead, she plunged it deeper into the wound. Finally, the Queen whipped her head from side to side with enough force to throw Lex off.
She crashed to the ground, losing her shield. Then Lex rolled away from the Queen, who roared and stamped her massive feet, cracking the ice and trying to crush her flat. Lex leaped to her feet and took off in a dash. Risking a peek over her shoulder, Lex felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw that her spear was still embedded in the Queen’s throat.
As the Alien fought to dislodge the spear, she stumbled against the burning building and plunged into the middle of the conflagration. Lex prayed that the monster would burn. Almost immediately the Queen rose from the flames like a phoenix, to attack once more. But Lex was gone.
Lex hated to leave Scar lying in the snow, but until she finished off the Queen, she could do nothing for the fallen Predator. So when the Queen emerged from the burning building, Lex ran in the opposite direction, toward the frozen shoreline.
Cresting an icy mound, Lex gazed out at a vast landscape of bleached whalebones. The bones littered a beach that was enveloped in a cold mist. Racing toward the whale graveyard, Lex sought shelter, a place where she could hide until she formulated a new plan of attack.
But time had run out. As she stumbled across the whale graveyard, the Queen’s black head loomed out of the fog behind her.
Narrowly avoiding the Alien’s raking claws, Lex ducked into the nearly intact skeleton of a whale. The bones rose out of the ice to form an ivory cage of protection. The Queen’s jaws snapped as she tried to grab the woman, but the sharp whalebone splinters pierced her hide. The Queen let loose with sibilant cries of rage and pain.
Racing among the bones, Lex circled the graveyard and hurried back the way she had come—toward the wharf and the only shelter she could find. Scrambling up the edge of the cliff, Lex dived under the tottering legs of the huge iron separator just as the Hive Mother reached out to snatch her.
“Damn it!” Lex cried, rolling away.
The Queen thrust her head between the separator’s support beams. Lex felt hot breath wash over her. It smelled of blood. She grabbed a chunk of ice and threw it at the creature’s gaping jaws. Then, narrowly avoiding decapitation, Lex ducked as the Alien whipped a barbed chain at her head.
“Come on then!” Lex cried defiantly as she slipped under the heavy iron pot.
Arms flung wide, chains dangling from her limbs, the Alien Queen bellowed in frustration. Lex dropped to the ground, crawled through the snow, and placed her shoulder against the weak support beam. She pushed against the wooden strut with all of her remaining strength. A tiny rivulet of blood trickled from the thunderbolt scar on her forehead. Lex tasted it, and pushed harder.
The Alien matriarch hissed like a rattlesnake and her toothy mouth gaped wide. Out of that noxious hole the inner jaws shot forward, snapping at Lex. Then Lex heard the wood crack, and she felt the support beam tumble as the iron pot dropped from its pedestal, to slide a few feet down the icy slope. But instead of falling on the Queen’s head, it remained in place, held only by a single stout wooden beam sunk deep into the glacial ice.
Collapsed on the snow, Lex panicked. The Queen was advancing, but Lex was out of weapons, ideas and luck.
Just as the Queen’s gnashing jaws were about to close in on Lex’s throat, an unholy howl cut through the frigid air.
Scar!
As he raced forward, Lex could see that the Predator was bleeding from a dozen wounds. But in his hand he held her crude spear, and he was ready for a fight. Fearlessly, he leaped, landing on the Alien Queen’s broad back. With a powerful thrust, he drove the spear clean through her throat.
The Queen bellowed with rage, and the Predator jumped clear. Spinning in the air, Scar landed in the snow next to Lex, where he crouched in a fighting stance.
While the tormented Queen clawed at the shaft, Lex tried to lift one of the chains linked to the Queen’s body and lash it around the iron separator. But the links were too heavy, and her strength, taxed to the limit, finally failed. Dropping the chain, Lex stumbled to her knees.
At that moment, Scar appeared at her side, taking up the task and lifting the chain links, wrapping them around the separator’s handle. Lex rose to help, and for a few triumphant moments they labored together, side by side.
Then Scar suddenly stiffened as the spiked tail of the Alien Queen punched a hole clean through his chest. Arms flung outward, the Predator was hoisted off the ground, writhing on the end of the razor-sharp tail.
With a flick of that deadly, albeit maimed, appendage the Queen dashed Scar to the ground and loomed over him, ready to finish him off.
But Lex was faster.
She rose and stumbled forward, slamming her body against the last support beam. The shock of the blow rattled her teeth and bruised a rib, but Lex heard a satisfying crack as the final leg tore free of the ice. Immediately, the huge iron vat slid the rest of the way down the slope and over the edge of the cliff, tumbling toward the harbor far below.
The long chain snapped taut, and with a jerk the Queen was snatched away at the very moment of her kill. Dragged through the snow, she kicked and clawed helplessly as she was pulled toward the icebound harbor.
The separator bounced end over end and struck the thick pack ice. Under the weight of the cast-iron vat, the ice cracked—but did not shatter. The roaring Alien was dragged along, but she came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the cliff—right in front of Lex.
Lex watched desperately as a spiderweb of cracks spread outward from the vat, but still the separator did not sink.
Then the Queen struggled to rise, and Lex knew she was doomed.
Suddenly an earsplitting crack echoed up from below, and with a groaning sound the frozen sheet caved in under the three-ton separator. With a splash the vat slipped through the hole and into the bay.
Once again the chain was pulled tight and the Alien Queen was yanked, wailing, toward the widening gap. Tittering and slobbering, the creature clawed at the ice, but to no avail. Limbs thrashing, wailing in protest, with hot gore gushing from the wound in her throat, the monster was sucked into the harbor, where she was swallowed by the cold ocean depths, the heavy separator as her anchor.
As the Alien Queen sank, Lex rose and hurried to Scar’s side.
Sobbing, she fell to her knees in the bloody snow, cradling the dying Predator’s head in her arms. His body broken, the Predator seemed resigned to his fate.
As Lex held him, Scar reached up a battered claw and gently traced the thunderbolt scar on her forehead with the tip of his finger. Using a distorted version of Lex’s own voice, the Predator spoke.
“The enemy of my enemy…”
“…is my friend,” said Lex.
Then the Predator shuddered once, and died.
As Lex pressed his face to her breast, a strange wind blew. Something large was passing over their heads. The Predator spacecraft shimmered into visibility, energy crackling across its hull. It hovered over Lex and the fallen warrior, engines humming.
As the shadow of the starship fell over her, Lex looked up. A few feet away, on a low ice shelf overlooking the battleground, a dozen Predators winked into existence before her eyes. Then multiple shadows cast from nowhere played over Lex. With a crackle of strange energies, more Predators became visible.
In a moment they pressed in to surround Lex.
Bowing low, they offered their respects to the lifeless Predator, then they lifted his corpse and carried him toward a long ramp that lowered silently out of the belly of the spaceship.
Lex fumbled at her belt for a weapon but came up empty—her club was gone, lost in the fight. She crouched in a martial arts fighting stance, fists raised and ready to lash out. Lex was willing to take them all on if she had to. For a long moment there was a tense standoff.
Stepping in front of her, a tall Predator with long, drooping dreadlocks and ornate, jewel-studded armor considered her through blank eye slits. Slowly, the creature lifted its hand and traced the scar on Lex’s forehead, then pointed to the same symbol burned into its own mask.
Lex’s eyes darted to the others. All of them bore the same distinctive mark.
The Predator elder nodded once, then presented Lex with his heavy spear. As she grasped the object in her hands, the inhuman hunters bowed their heads in a gesture of respect.
Then the elder turned his back on the woman and winked to invisibility. Lex traced his retreating footsteps, along with the prints of the others, as they marched through the snow to the starship.
The ramp silently closed and the craft’s main thrusters roared. Saint Elmo’s fire danced across its metallic surface and the ship vanished, though Lex could still hear its roar and feel the hum of its engines rumbling in her chest. Finally, in a blast of snow and ice, the spacecraft was gone.
Drenched in blood—human, Alien and Predator—and wreathed by bruises, Lex watched it go. In her own gesture of respect, she touched the tribal scar that branded her forehead. Finally, she lowered the spear and reached into her pocket.
Lex gazed at Sebastian’s rusty Pepsi cap for a long moment. Then she turned her eyes skyward once more, where a break in the clouds revealed a brilliant full moon hanging low in the Antarctic sky. Watching the clouds drift across the lunar surface, Lex recalled Sebastian’s words, and she spoke them in a voice tinged with awe and sadness.
“Hunter’s Moon.”