I'll admit, I'm having a bit of a tough time with writing these chapters. I do have plans set in motion, but I don't want the action to become repetitive and so forth.

By his estimation, two years had passed, and his desire still had yet to be quenched.

In that amount of time he had traveled around the nearby galaxies, hunting on an almost daily basis.

Mark was proud to say the was getting closer to being peak shape.

His body was now covered in both muscles and scars, and fat seemed to be a distant memory.

Serpents truly were the greatest prey, however, he quickly found out that hives were not common, and even worse the planets that housed them were sometimes restricted until the hunting season came along. And if that wasn't enough, some sectors were under the complete rule of other clans, clans that did not take to outsiders very well.

Since he couldn't hunt the most dangerous prey, he had to make do with what was available. Luckily, there were numerous planets with lots of predators.

He recently took the skull of a beast that closely resembled a spinosaurus. It was a hard battle for the its hide was tough, and he managed to defeat it by striking the vulnerable sail on its back and letting it bleed out.

That was not to say that he hadn't collected other trophies, and their heads now littered the trophy wall; as a matter of fact, it was nearly full.

'Hell, if I keep up at this rate, I'll have to return to Yaut to drop off all of this.'

And he would probably receive more bands of honor because of his successful hunts.

He craved to achieve the rank of elite, for it would give permits to some systems deemed too dangerous to hunt, and he would have the ability to purchase even better equipment and complete sets of awu'asa. His current rank was still that of a blooded hunter.

Mark was on the constant lookout for hive cleansings, for those offered a ludicrous amounts of credits. Working with a group was a side bonus, even though he would prefer to be on his own.

Unfortunately, the opportunity still had yet to appear, but he would grasp it as soon as possible. He'd be a fool to pass up a such an advantageous offer.

After lots of work, he managed to create a prototype bot for hand to hand combat training. He had replaced the hard metal plates with hard leather instead, and this allowed him to continually practice his martial arts.

The hunter was now able to lift over three tons of weight, and possibly break the four ton benchmark with an adrenaline boost.

During this time, he had managed to create clothes akin to the ones on Earth, consisting mainly of a t-shirt and shorts. And while his transformational given him better heat resistance, he still preferred the cool of winter over the blistering hot of summer.

That was why he kept the ship's humidity to a minimum.

It explained the reason for why he wanted complete sets of body armor, each retrofitted for any kind of environment. It would also create some diversity in his otherwise plain looking ship.

The interior was bare and very spartan like. When he had first bought it, there was the option to refurnish it, but Mark had no intentions to pay any more than he already had.

His hopes of getting to Earth, even if only for a short time, were still present. He had yet to use the code to deactivate the tracker, but he knew that it would be a risk, considering that the arbitrators would properly notice fairly soon.

And then, he would be apprehended, questioned, perhaps even punished. It would certainly get worse if they found out that Yurli had given him the code.

Speaking of which, she had recently invited him to go hunt on a game preserve. 'That would be nice...'

Mark tried to stick on his own as much as he could. Though his existence was know to a number of clans, there were probably hundreds of others who didn't. The few times that he had encountered other yautja while hunting usually ended up with a fight.

It was they however that initiated the fight. He only fought in self defense. He did refrain from landing killing blows.

He did know that his eyesight was marginally different from that of the other race, but he did wonder how come they never noticed the rings adorning his necklace.

'Humph, would you look at that...' he fought as he read the reports of a recent fight between two neighboring clans, competing for the same territory.

In the end, the matriarchs of the clans present in that section of space converged together and agreed on giving the land a shared ownership.

It was interesting to see how such debates were resolved.

'Well, I've had my fair share of news for today. Better head off to bed.'

In no time, he was under the covers, he still had the knowledge the likely wouldn't sleep more than a wink, and that meant going off to training for the billionth time.

His light sleep was broken when a shudder resonated over the entire ship. The lights suddenly whent out.

Mark jumped off the bed, equipped his computer wrist, and to his dismay he found out that it was dead. It was almost as if the electrical system was shut off.

While there was always the chance for it occur, it was extremely unlikely, which could only mean one thing: someone was boarding his ship.

He quickly grabbed a set of daggers along with a combistick and a sword. Equipping his awu'asa would take far too much time.

Mark knew the layout of the ship, so he would have to wait in the shadows.

The soldier slowly forced the door open, as to not cause any noise and alert the intruder.

Soon enough, he heard heavy footsteps.

He maneuvered around the intruder. 'This doesn't make sense: any conscious yautja wouldn't make such loud sounds. Something's off.'

He quietly stalked behind the figure in the dark corridors.

By peaking around a corner, he was able to identify it. It was large, taller than him by about four inches by his estimation, placing it at the height of nine feet.

What caused him to almost gasp was the the sloped grey armor covering everything but the bald, white head.

This was an engineer.

Not much was know about them. What was know was the fact that they were one of the oldest races, and there were few left. They had quite possibly the best technology in the universe, and could physically contest and beat a yautja.

Although it was never confirmed, some believed that they created the kiande amedha, thanks to their excessive use of genetic engineering.

It was currently examining the controls of the ship.

Slowly approaching, Mark gripped a modified plasma gun and silently stood over him.

A shot to the head at point blank would mean instant death. Using a plasma caster would be dangerous inside the ship, so he used one that was weaker and handheld. He aimed it at the alien's head and pulled the trigger. Mark remained speechless as the shot seemingly hit an invisible wall, and was absorbed.

'Fuck!'

The taller creature whirled around and tackled him with a yell. He was forced to the ground.

Immediately, he wrapped his legs around the opponent on top of him, and engaged him.

Mark knew from the thud of the fist landing next to his head that it was stronger.

He twisted his torso to avoid the blows and fired back with a few of his own. It was clear that they didn't have the desired effect as the white being didn't even wince, but instead yelled in rage.

Still grappled to him, the alien rose up to his feet, intent on slamming him on the metal floor.

Mark disengaged and rolled away, arming himself with the sword and a long knife.

They circled around each other, the engineer muttering a few incomprehensible words as Mark kept his cool.

Unsurprisingly, the other charged first, the soldier prepared to strike at his unharmed head but was caught off guard when the alien dove and pinned his legs to the floor, sending him tumbling down a heartbeat later.

Both weapons escaped his grasp and he kicked away at his opponent, the move cost him though, as his leg was grabbed and he was thrown against the wall, knocking the air out of him.

He had no time to rest as he shifted to the side to avoid a stomp that dented the wall. In his effort to dodge the deadly blow, Mark was unable to notice the hand that gripped his throat and hoisted him above the ground.

A punch to the gut had him sputtering for air, so he hoisted himself upwards using the arm holding him as a leverage and booted his enemy in the face.

That did cause the engineer's nose to break and gush our dark blue blood.

The hold on his flesh was released and he scrambled back to rethink his strategy.

Mark knew that he was tired and worse yet did not have any sort of protection safe for the cloth pants and the belt holding the daggers.

The white asshole had an entire suit of cold unbreakable defense. That eliminated the possibilities for most hand to hand attacks, it also prevented the use of joint locks. He would have to aim for the head. He would have to catch by surprise.

Unsheathing another knife, he threw it with lightning quick speed, hoping to pierce the vulnerable skin of its neck.

The armored foe saved himself by raising his hand in time and the blade sunk in till the hilt, appearing on the other side.

Momentarily preoccupied with the piece of sharp metal lodged in its hand, the engineer could not focus on Mark as he drove his shoulder into the alien and lifted him in a feat of desperation.

Carrying on his momentum he collided against the wall next to the door, and it caved in, sending them sprawling into the large hall.

The larger combatant swatted him away and removed the knife with a growl. It was soon upon Mark and it drove the blade into his shoulder.

The human screamed in pain and attempted to catch his face with an elbow. The white alien caught his arm and with a squeeze broke his wrist.

Pain bolstering his energy, the human smashed his forehead into the already broken nose of his nemesis, damaging it further.

He was launched and landed on the edge of the stone table, ribs shattering under the force of the impact.

Mark grunted in pain again as he staggered back to the control room.

There he picked up the fallen sword and readied himself as the thundering steps reached closer.

He bent his legs and ducked under the oncoming swipe of the metal arm and rolled to its back.

He looped the sword against its neck, pulling it as his hands gripped the blunted side. Adrenaline kicking in, he kicked its leg out with a grunt, ignoring the fire burning in his wrist and pulled more as the struggling alien gargled on its own blood.

Planting a foot against the back of the engineer, Mark roared and cleaved the sword almost to the nape, as the struggling alien ceased its movements and dropped its head.

The soldier breathed heavily, wincing at pain in his side, limping, he made his way to the chamber that housed the main generators. After booting the system back up, he made his way to the piloting chair, stepping over the corpse.

He quickly opened the control panel and started to to forward a request for a meeting with Kyiv. The request was denied as the user wasn't present.

He switched to Y'rall, and received the same result.

Neither Gruvin nor Yurli answered and he grew frantic. He couldn't contact the matriarch or high eldress as he didn't have the clearance to.

'God dammit, it had to be him...'

The holographic image flickered to life as Na'gook appeared, and upon recognition scowled at him.

"You! What is the meaning of this?" Mark jumbled with the controls for a bit before activating a translator, "I am in- "I do not care for you ooma- "I have an engineer ship currently boarded to my hunting vessel. I need backup to safely retrieve and detach it."

His eyes went wide, "Engineer?"

There you go, bonus chapter.