Slowly, without taking her eyes off the creature, she pulled off the pack that held the Predator’s gun and presented it. When he refused to take it, she set the pack on the floor and slid it toward him.
An endless moment passed. Then the Predator lowered its spear and scooped up the pack—just as the elongated head of an Alien warrior emerged from the shadows behind it.
Lex opened her mouth to cry a warning, but, sensing danger, the Predator whirled to strike before she could even utter a sound.
Swinging furiously, the Alien struck the spear from Scar’s fist. A second blow sent the Predator reeling to the ground. Even before the warrior’s back hit the cold stone, the snarling Alien was on him. Its tail lashed from side to side, its bony segments struck sparks on the walls and its claws shredded Scar’s armor.
The Predator tried vainly to dislodge the monster, but the Alien dug in harder, ripping gouts of flesh out from beneath the armor. Scar howled and jabbed. The Alien pulled back its head, opening its jaws to spray hot spittle on the Predator’s mask.
Scar’s fingers tore at the Alien’s hide until acid blood seeped from a dozen wounds. The Alien then leaned closer to Scar’s face. Its jaws opened as wide as a snake swallowing its prey. Its interior mouth moved forward, slathering over Scar’s flesh, its teeth gnashing grotesquely.
The Predator showed signs of weakness. Its struggles became less violent, and it seemed to Lex that the creature was as close to accepting its death as she had been just a few seconds before. Finally, Scar lay still, its sightless eye slits staring impassively at the fate looming above it.
The Alien hissed triumphantly, then tucked its head down to deliver the killing bite to Scar’s exposed throat.
Only then did the Predator strike. Using the Alien’s weight against it, Scar rolled backwards, throwing the Alien over its head in what looked to Lex like a kind of judo move. To her horror, the Alien had been tossed in her direction. Reaching down, she snatched the Predator’s spear from the ground and raised it with both hands.
The Alien bounced off the narrow walls of the tunnel and righted itself. But this time it was facing new prey —Lex.
Scar roared and turned to face its opponent just as a second Alien leaped out of the shadows—the alpha- Alien.
The large Alien, its body burned by a Predator net, threw itself at Scar with all its might. The Predator pressed its back to the wall and drew a throwing disk. The device unfolded with an electric hum, revealing ten-inch blades that projected from its edges.
But Scar never had a chance to use it.
Unleashing an unearthly screech, the alpha-Alien struck the Predator full on the chest, bringing him down. Locked in a deadly tango, Scar and the Alien rolled end over end as the Predator used its own claws to pound the monster’s black, ravaged hide.
Taking its cue from the alpha-Alien, the smaller creature facing Lex also charged, jaws snapping, teeth gnashing. The monster leaped in a high arc, intending to come down with its full weight on the frail human.
But that maneuver proved to be the Alien’s undoing. With calculated calm, Lex stepped back and propped the Predator spear against the hard stone floor. When the Alien completed its jump, it landed on the tip of the sharp spear, impaling itself.
With a dying shriek that shook dust off the walls, the Alien thrashed and bucked on the end of the shaft. Lex struggled to hold the spear steady, keeping the monster twisting on it at bay. Acid blood splashed the walls and coursed down the shaft, melting the metal. Still the screaming horror dangling on her spear refused to die. Risking chemical burns that would easily dissolve the flesh of her hands to the bone, Lex tilted the spear upward so that the Alien’s own struggles, its own weight would drive the spear deeper into its black body.
Meanwhile, Scar and the alpha-Alien were still locked in deadly combat. The Predator had rolled out from under its foe and had recovered its disk. Again and again, the Predator drove the long, gleaming blades into the monster’s thick hide. The Alien yowled and raked the Predator, even as great rivulets of burning acid flowed from multiple wounds, pitting Scar’s shattered armor and scorching his pale gray flesh.
Lex risked a quick glance at the Predator before Alien jaws snapped at her face. The monstrosity she’d impaled refused to die, and as it slid lower on the shaft, it tried to bite her. Lex shook the spear, spraying sizzling drops of acid all over the walls and floor. The Alien screamed again, and so did Lex as the first drop of acid touched the end of her glove.
Recoiling, Lex released the spear and the Alien with it. Both struck the wall, where the monster twitched once, then stilled. Lex gave the Alien a swift kick to the head, then a second—and for good measure a third, just to make sure it was dead. The Alien’s jaws gaped open, flecked with foam. Its internal mouth hung limply in its skull. Blood no longer flowed from its wounds.
“The bastard’s dead.”
Now Lex knew that these things were mortal. She had actually killed one—and it felt
Suddenly, the floor trembled under her boots as the pyramid shifted again. For a moment, nothing else happened. Then the “dead end” wall rumbled as it slid up to the ceiling, to reveal another chamber beyond.
Lex saw movement and threw herself against the wall. Still grappling, Scar and the Alien rolled past her.
Pinning the Alien to the ground, Scar raised the disk for a decapitating blow. But before the blades reached its throat, the monster slithered out of Scar’s grasp, and the blades splintered on the stone floor. Grabbing one of the long, cylindrical horns that projected out of the Alien’s spine, the Predator climbed onto its back and slashed at its gleaming skull with the broken knives.
The Alien tried to dislodge him, and both tumbled end over end, through the door into the new chamber.
Lex could see that there was more light in the next room, but she hesitated. If she went the other way, she could slip away from the Predator and maybe get out of there alive.
Then Lex laughed.
But there was more reason to stay. Perhaps it was her curiosity, or perhaps it was something more primal—a kind of base admiration—but Lex had just watched the most dedicated hunter in the universe take on nature’s most perfect killing machine.
A part of her simply wanted to see who won.
Limping, she approached the door. All along the floor there were patches of sickly green blood and smoldering holes in the stone where the Alien had shed what passed for blood. Lex followed the grisly trail to the doorway.
In the dim light, she saw a long corridor lined with columns. The walls and pillars were elaborately etched with complex hieroglyphics. The battle still raged, with the combatants wrestling in the center of the passageway. It appeared as if the Predator was weakening—and this time Lex sensed it was not a feint. Though he still wielded the shattered throwing disk, his blows were less powerful, and none were mortal. It was only a matter of time before Scar would be dead and Lex would be alone with the thing that had killed him.
But Lex was in for a surprise.
With a howl of defiance, the Predator hurled the Alien aside in a final show of strength. The Alien slammed against a set of pillars and dislodged several huge stones from the ceiling. They came down in a cloud of dust and debris.
Scar staggered back to avoid being crushed—and blundered into Lex.
They shared a startled look, and before Scar raised the disk in his hand, they heard the angry hiss.
Together they turned to see more Aliens—four of them—scrabbling across the floor and along the ceiling. One, who was tossing masonry stones aside, lowered its head and seethed at them. Lex realized the purpose of the troops were to free the alpha-Alien, who had become trapped by the avalanche of debris.
Meanwhile the Predator attached the plasma gun Lex had brought him to its shoulder mount. With a flurry of energy that blinded Lex, Scar drove the Aliens back with blast after blast from that powerful weapon.
When they were fully out of sight, the Predator lowered the smoking disk and dropped it onto the floor. Then he deactivated the weapon on his shoulder and looked at Lex, who stood hypnotized by the sight of the retreating Aliens flowing over rock and along the walls and ceiling.
Without a sound, the Predator turned its back on Lex and stalked away.
“Hey! Hey!” Lex yelled. “I’m coming with you.”
