I polished the fruits off and crawled out of the bed determined to find where to put it. I never left dishes in my room and I wasn't about to. Xai'an said this was my ship too, after all. I needed to learn the layout.

My hand found the pad to open the door and when it opened with a 'whish' I half expected Baaul to come running out and tell me to stay inside, but he didn't. He wasn't even around.

There were two options for me to go. Left or right. I vaguely remember going left to the control room so I chose to go left. The hallways were tall arched metal with beautiful etchings that I recognized as their language. I wonder if Xai'an would teach me to read it?

The floors were a solid glossy metal like silver, but not quite. Maybe steel? I wasn't sure because I had never seen steel have those red swirls of color to it before. It was probably an element not from Earth.

I followed the hallway for quite a distance without a sign of any other room and I suddenly wondered if the doors were simply hidden like the closet had been? It would make sense. Surely a ship this big had more than a damn bedroom, bathroom, and cockpit…

With a sigh I started to give up and turned around, smacking face first into Baaul. I jumped, screamed, and threw the platter at him which clattered loudly to the floor after bouncing uselessly off his chest. I wasn’t proud of it. Especially because I knew he was laughing at me. "You fucking scared me! Jerk!"

Even though he was the shortest of all of the Predators I had seen, he still towered over me. I watched him bend down to gather the platter in his hands and hand it back to me.

"What are you looking for?" He asked. His accent was also less severe than Xai'an's. It made me wonder why. Had he just not been around humans much? Did he find our languages a chore? Another thing to ask him when he got back.

"Oh, uh, I'm looking to put this up. I don't like leaving dishes where I sleep. This is my first time exploring and Xai’an always took this stuff with him before." I held up the platter as if he needed a reminder.

"Follow me. I will show you." He was careful to avoid touching me as he passed me. With his stride I also had to kind of jog a little to keep up with him. I didn't mind. I needed the exercise after being bed bound for the last few days.

"Yours and….Yerin'an's accent isn't as heavy as Xai'an's. Do you guys visit Earth more often?" I knew I said I was going to ask Xai'an, but I was curious. Sue me.

"Xai'an is our greatest warrior despite his filthy blood. He hunts specifically for our clan leader. It rarely takes him to Earth." Baaul stopped in front of the wall and placed his hand out to it. There was a hiss of air, and a door slid open.

"Xai'an isn't filthy. Please do not insult him around me." Friends or not, I wasn't going to tolerate people saying bad things about him.

"It is a fact. Though he can not help it. It is a fact." He walked inside after reaching for the platter I had. I gave it up willingly so I could look around. This room somewhat resembled a kitchen. The only reason I thought that was because there was a flat table in the center and a large glass door in the wall that looked like an oven.

Baaul walked across the room and fed the platter through a hole in the wall. He motioned to it. "This will sanitize any dish. The hole will adjust to any shape automatically. Doors will be marked with red letters of our language above."

I appreciated the helpful guiding tips but I was still focused on our conversation of Xai'an. "What is also a fact is that he is just as much one of you as the rest of you. I understand your culture's ways are to hunt things. Kill them and bring stuff back for the honor of it, but there are rules. Xai'an has never broken a rule, has he?"

"No."

"In over 600 years Xai'an has never broken a rule, followed your codes, rose to the highest rank of greatest warrior all while being a 'filthy half breed'. When are you guys going to accept him for him? If I can accept him as an entirely different species, then you guys should have done so a long time ago! Don't be racist pieces of shit!" I knew I was red in the face by the time I was done and it pissed me off that he just cocked his head at me curiously.

"What is this term? 'Racist'?"

I sighed heavily. "Racist means you hate someone for being different from you. Humans for example have a variety of different races. White. African. Asian. Hispanic. The list goes on. All these races have physical traits that are common with the race, such as skin color, hair type, or the shape of one's eyes. There are humans who hate any race aside from their own. Sometimes it only matters about the color of their skin. It's weak mindedness because we all bleed red at the end of the day. You and Xai’an bleed green at the end of the day, so why does it matter what he looks like on the outside when he's proven time and time again that he's one of you?"

Baaul chittered as he seemed to consider my words. His large mandibles flexed slightly and I think he was going to say something to me when a loud sound interrupted him. He growled and ran passed me so fast I almost didn't make the door when I tried to follow him.

"Wait! What's going on?"

Somehow I managed to keep up just enough to follow him into the cockpit. He was leaning over the massive keyboard, running his claws over it like he knew what he was doing.

"Baaul! Tell me! What's going on!"

"Xai'an issued a distress. They are in trouble. It is up to me to go finish this. You shall wait here-"

"The hell I am! Xai'an is my mate, isn't he? I love him, Baaul!" I stepped in front of his path when he tried to rush past me again.

"You would fight for him? Against your own kind?" He sounded like he was shocked, but I couldn’t quite tell with his features.

"Oh, buddy, would I! I'm going with you whether you like it or not!" I let him see in my face just how resolved I was.

"Little warrior, you do not fear death?"

I shook my head, "Oh, I'm scared of dying! I'm just scared of never seeing Xai'an more. I'm not the warrior you guys are, but I can fight! I'm. Going. With. You."

Baaul nodded then. "You are a good mate. Follow me."

I did. He led me to a massive room that had hundreds...and I mean...hundreds of skulls lining the walls. I stared in awe. These...were all of Xai'an's trophies. Holy...shitballs! In the middle was a display that made me think of a dinosaur exhibit at a museum. The creature had been tall, like you'd expect a T-Rex to be, but this thing didn't seem to have eyes and it had an enormous head crown. It oddly looked like those black things that took over my town...Xenomorphs? That's what my torturer had called them. Xai'an had called them something else, but I had already forgotten what it was.

"Kiande Amedha Queen. She breeds the eggs with the larva that attach to the face. They are the greatest honor any Yautja can achieve. Xai'an is the only Yautja to attain such an honor. Three different times…Come. We must hurry." Baaul motioned for me to follow him and after another glance at the massive thing, I did.

There was another room inside this place. This one was much smaller, but it was still bigger than my old apartment. Weapons lined the walls here, but Baaul passed them all. He motioned to a circular platform. "Stand. The system will need to take your measurements to create weapons for your size."

I hopped up onto the stand and watched as Baaul went to a small computer device hovering nearby. He pulled it with him to stand in front of me. This place just had all kinds of neat things, didn't it?

"Will this take long?"

Baaul shook his head. "Hold out your arms and spread your legs. The machine will come out of the ceiling and create the armor and weapons onto you. Just stay still."

I frowned but did what he said. When he was satisfied, he hit a button and left the computer device floating so he could go stock up himself. The 'machine' he was referring to came down from a small retractable door. It looked like a liquid metal ball as it flowed in and out of shape.

A red laser dot found me just before it widened and circled around me. It happened so fast that it took me a second to realize it had come from the floating blob. As soon as it finished scanning me I watched in fascination as the blob started to part itself into smaller sections and make its way to me. First were my feet. The liquid metal was cool as it ran over my skin, which is not what I'd expect from a liquid metal. I wobbled slightly as it found its way under my feet and pushed me up, solidifying as it moved. They were more sandles than boots since they exposed my toes, but they had five little curved blades over each toe. Next, my shins, where the liquid started to solidify itself into shape. The shin guards had short, but very sharp blades three of them, with the largest being in the middle. Kicking anyone with these would be an instant maim, if not death blow.

"I chose your armor to match Xai'an's. You are his mate after all." Baaul said as he hooked one of those guns to his shoulder.

My waist now was lined with an almost battle skirt but it was a bit more...risqué than that because it exposed a lot of leg and a bit more than I'd like of my ass. Metal sheets built like the belly of a snake went down over my nether regions, the side of my hips and over my ass. One wrong move and I'd flash an entire room. I was not down for that, but I doubted I'd have time to run to my room and get something a little less revealing than these panty style yoga shorts.

The metal formed to my breasts, cupping them solidly like one of those medieval tv shows that were popular back in the 90's. The shirt I had been wearing suddenly fell to ashes, as if the computer said, 'Naw, that doesn't look fashionable! Let's get rid of it!' I mourned the loss because I wasn't a bikini girl. Again, not exactly something worth complaining about when Xai'an was in trouble.

I felt the metal conform to my shoulders as well as my right forearm. It took only a few seconds to see they were shoulder pads, and a gauntlet. The same kind that had the dual blades like Xai'an's. A small swelling of pride warmed my heart just as the wet metal hit my face. Instinctively, I pulled back.

"Stay still. It is conforming to your face to give you our bio mask." Baaul encouraged. I think he had finished preparing some time ago, because he had his mask on and I hadn’t seen him with it earlier.

I tried to relax and let the metal cover my face. It was a strained effort because it felt so damn weird. I just closed my eyes and tried to breathe. My lips brushed the liquid and I made an unpleasant sound deep in my throat. The metal didn't touch me again and solidified.

"Good. It's finished."

I opened my eyes but I couldn't see anything. "Uh...why can't I see?"

"Your mask hasn't been programmed yet. While we make our descent I will get it up and running. For now, take it off. We need to pick out your main weapons."

I reached for the mask, expecting it to be a struggle, but it came right off. It was the weirdest thing. Normally, I could always feel something on my face giving. Like when I used headbands to keep my hair back when I washed my face. I could always feel the damn thing inching off. How some girls went about all day with them is beyond me. This thing however...it was not going anywhere until I moved it. It must be some sort of technology I didn't understand.

Baaul was back to the control panel. "Xai'an will want you out of harm's way, so I think distance weapons will be your best defense."

"But I'm trained in hand to hand." I countered.

"You are not bulletproof. Your ooman brethren will not hesitate to shoot you. It is smarter to keep you further away and only rely on your ooman training if necessary." He ran his claws over the screen again and nodded to himself. "Yes, this should work. Hold out your hands, palms up."

To do so, I had to put the mask down on the stage next to my feet. When I was in position, the liquid ball parted again. It stretched out almost like a pole in my hands. I noticed that it didn't lose it's size at all even after making so much of my armor. "What is that thing?"

"Nanobots. Not born from ooman intelligence like your movies. They are living metal. Organisms that can immediately self repopulate. We use them on Yautja Prime for just about everything."

The metal in my hand took the shape of a massive bow. I could work with that. "So they just do your bidding?"

"We use electromagnetic waves to compulse them into what we need like a machine. Left unchecked, these microorganisms would be as bad of an infestation as the Kiande Amedha. Do not pity them."

I had been pitying them, but if they were that terrifying, I'd make a whole city out of the little fuckers. When my bow was done, I tested it out. The metal drawstring was light as a feather but I could tell it was wrung tight. I had gone hunting once when I was a girl with my father and uncle. My uncle had let me use his bow because it had mechanisms in it that made it easier to draw, but it still shot out something fierce. I was betting this had similar technology.

"You do not need to be up there for these. Come." Baaul motioned for me to follow him over to where he had been standing gathering his weapons.

When I reached him, he grabbed my bow from me and hooked it into a spot on my back that I hadn’t known was there. He had me pull it off and put it back a few times to make sure I was comfortable with it before fitting my shoulder with a gun. "Your mask will aim for you. Now here."

He handed me a belt of some sort. I started tying it around my waist and he started to fill it with various knives. It should have been heavy with all this stuff, but I felt surprisingly light. Was it the quality of the weapons or was it just me? Did Xai'an's blood make me stronger?

"This." Baaul suddenly had a syringe in his hand, waving it slightly in front of my face. "This is a stimulant. It is likely that if we find them, the oomans will have sedated them. You will need to inject into the chest, here." He motioned to the area above his heart and I nodded.

"Got it."

He nodded back and we were moving out of the armory and trophy room. He didn't stop until we were back in the control room. There he took my mask and hooked it up to a wire he pulled from the keyboard and ran his claws over it.

When he finally turned to me he motioned to my arm with the blades. "We will be there shortly. While we wait, I'm going to make sure you know how to use those weapons...Are you sure you can kill your own?"

I started to say yes, but I forced myself to stop and really think about it. The last time I killed someone in cold blood was because of what he did to me and my friend. He personally hurt me so it was easy. Could I really look at these people, most of them probably hired, and kill them simply for doing their jobs? The more I thought about it, the more sure I was. I met him with unflinching eyes and said, "Yes."