Aliens Vs Predator: The Shepherd

  

Art by Javier Saltares, Dark Horse Comics

A world. Not Earth, but similar. A golden sky. A pretty sunset. 

A man and woman walk through a wheat field. Talking pleasantly, enjoying their stroll. They run their fingers through the tall grass. 

Their smiles fade to disturbed curiosity when they come upon a Strange Shape on the ground. 

A crouching humanoid form, somewhat mechanical in appearance. An elongated head. A tail, curving over the front and down the back.

The arms open. The tail unfurls. An eyeless faces looks up at them. Lips open to form a terrible grin. Thick saliva begins to flow from bared teeth. 

Without a word, the couple turn and run. Panting, they turn their heads to see if the thing is following. They see nothing. The man grabs the woman's arm at the sight of another Strange Shape, inexplicably in the direction they had just came from. They turn to find a new path, but other Shapes begin to rise.

They're surrounded. 

A scream goes unheard by the sun as it dips below the horizon. 

ALIENS VS PREDATOR: THE SHEPHERD 

A pilgram colony on a distant world is invaded by a pack of thirteen Aliens. No one knows where these eldritch horrors came from, but it's clear the colonists are ill-equipped to fight them. Due to their heavily secluded lifestyle, the colonists have no means of communication to call for help.

As the colony prepares for a final assault, a smaller group abandons the complex, hoping to reach a manned supply outpost many miles away. Sounds of the battle carry through the stillness of the night, letting the deserters know the colony did not prevail.

Along the way to their destination, the group discovers the source of the Alien scourge: a crashed Predator spaceship. An impending storm forces them to take refuge inside. There, they explore the interior and observe the aftermath of a deadly encounter between two extraterrestrial species that caused the ship's ruin. They enter what appears to be a cryosleep chamber. Most of the sleep capsules are shattered, with chestbursted Yautja corpses inside. The dessicated remains of Alien eggs and facehuggers are found in another room. It is deduced that while the Predators were in suspended animation, the facehuggers escaped stasis and parasitized the crew.

One of the group members is attacked by an unmasked Predator. Unarmed, it bites into the man's neck, chewing with its mandibles, killing him. The monster then chases the others to a dead end, but begins to convulse. An Alien chestburster erupts from its body, spattering the horrified colonists with luminous green blood. Equipment lays all around the floor of the ship. One colonist picks up an implement to club the chestburster. It tries to escape, but the glowing blood covering its body leaves a trail, making it easy to track in the dim light. Cornered, it leaps on its attacker and they both fall on the lying Predator. Though dying, the Yautja's heart is still strong and pumps out pints of bloody fluid. Another person comes to help. The struggle bathes both of them in the neon blood. They finally manage to bludgeon the infant Alien to death. 

Xenos from the doomed colony return to the ship. The colonists use Predator weaponry to fight back and manage to kill a few, but suffer many casualties. As the group flees, two parents stay behind, sacrificing themselves so that their children can escape. The ship's self-destruct is detonated. The whole ordeal is witnessed in thermal vision by a lone Predator warrior, the only survivor of the now destroyed vessel. 

The Predator follows and studies the deserters. Stalked by Aliens, the colonists unwittingly provide the Predator easy opportunities to eliminate xenomorphs one at a time.

A hunter, he attacks at range, scoring kills with his plasma caster, combistick, and smart disc. This makes him a benefactor of sorts to the group. Some erroneously liken him to a sheperd guarding his flock, thus giving the Predator his nickname. But that metaphor proves false when he also kills a couple of the humans who foolishly attack him, mistaking him for a threat. He guts them with his wrist blades, then skins and hangs their bodies, terrifying those who find them later. 

Despite the Shepherd's "help" the deserters are picked off to the point where only a few young children remain. They take refuge in a wooded area, lost and not knowing what to do. Through the maze of trees, they hear the voice of one of their leaders call to them. They follow for half a mile and come to a riverbank. The early morning mist thickens to a fog as they walk along beside it. They stop with fright at the sight of three Alien heads looming over the water by the rivers edge, but realize the heads are stuck on wooden pikes. 

"Over here!" 

Further down the riverbank, the children see someone walking towards them through the fog. They run to meet him but notice something amiss.  The figure has a human shape but stands much taller. The body appears translucent, visible only due to the surrounding fog. 

The Shepherd has lured them here. Eye lenses flashing, he decloaks and approaches them, intent on ending their hopeless plight. But he is intrigued when one brave girl defiantly stands her ground. With his targeting laser placing three red dots on her forehead, she brandishes a Predator net gun in return, ready to fight and defend the others. 

The tense standoff is too much for one kid to bear. He kneels by the riverbank, about to throw up, but notices strange ripples moving through the water.  As they move towards the river's edge, a dorsal fin and biomechanical tubing break the water's surface, and an Alien thrusts itself from the water, tackling the Shep. As it grabs his head, the gun cables are inadvertently yanked from their connecting ports. The xenomorph pins him to the ground and coils its tail around his arms, preventing him from drawing a weapon. It pulls his mask off. Knowing he's busted, Shep roars his defiance while the creature's lips draw slowly back and it opens its jaws to reveal the second pair of inner teeth. Before it can deliver the fatal blow, the Alien is struck by the net fired from the girl's gun. It releases the Predator, rolling back into the river. Shep quickly recovers and readies his combistick. The Alien, struggling with the razor netting contracting tight on its body, dives underwater and disappears. 

Shep draws back, ready to throw his spear, but thinks better of it and turns his attention back to the girl. He recognizes her as one of the kids of the selfless parents who gave their lives earlier.

Having seen Shep's fallibility, the other children are braver now and stand beside the girl, a united front.  He retracts his combistick. He decides these little runts deserve a fighting chance and guides them on the rest of their journey. 

The Shepherd uses his biomask to track radio signals from the supply outpost. They travel all through next day, stopping only once for water. He notices a small boy has a bad cut through the middle of his hand. He pulls out his med kit. The boy pulls away, frightened at the sight of the many sharp and foreign tools, but the Shepherd tolerates no resistance. He holds the crying child by force while tending to the wound, mending the hand amazingly well. 

They continue until nightfall. Shep realizes the kids aren't just exhausted, but famished. He leads them to a cave and makes sure there are no other entry points. He gives the girl a small pistol. She indicates she knows how to use it. He leaves to hunt. 

He returns later with their meal, a slain native beast. A campfire is deemed too risky, as it may attract the attention of the xenomorphs. Shep uses a small torch to sear strips of meat and toss them to his unenthusiastic customers. The meat is charred, half raw, and sinewy, but the starving kids manage to chew it up. They sleep for the night inside the cave. Shep sits dozing outside the entrance, his plasma caster tracking in scan mode. 

The next day passes without incident. It seems the Aliens have lost their trail. Late that night, they reach a sturdy perimeter fence, designed to keep wild animals out. Far in the distance, they can see the flood lights of the outpost. Safety is within reach! But despair is felt when they hear an unearthly squeal piercing the night. Shep magnifies his alien tracking vision to see a xenomorph approaching. Other Aliens have undoubtedly heard the call and will arrive soon. 

The Sheperd must make a final stand against the remaining Aliens to buy the children time to reach their salvation. He climbs to the top of the fence and helps the children over. The girl is the last to touch down. As she begins to rise, the  combistick spears the ground in front of her. She looks up at Shep who, having shown her how to use the weapon earlier, looks at her now with a clear expectation for her to take it. She grips it, retracting the spear tips. She looks up again, maybe to say goodbye, or to thank him. She doesn't know. But he has already dropped down to the other side. She leads the other children away without looking back. 

Shep unslings from his back a case, the contents of which have been thus far undisclosed. He opens and pulls from it the components to assemble a splendid polearm with an elaborate blade on each end. The pole is long. It will provide an excellent reach advantage. He uses his sharpening laser to heat the blades to deadly perfection. 

The Shepherd stands ready at the fenced perimeter. Security spotlights illuminate a sleety rain. The first Alien appears. Unwisely, it attacks without waiting for its packmates and is dispatched smoothly and efficiently. A slash to the knee brings it down, followed by a stroke cutting off the front part of its head. 

Three more Aliens step from the blackness of the forest.  These are a warrior caste, with ridged, domeless heads, and blade-like fins on their arms. Seeing the corpse of the first Alien gives them pause. Shep's plasma caster swivels into place. The xenos recognize the danger of the tracking laser and spread out, seeking cover. Shep scans in alien tracking mode. He sees one of them breach the fence to pursue the younglings. The sleet and rain make targeting difficult. Shep fires multiple bursts. Brilliant explosions shower sparks all around the running xenomorph. Some rounds overshoot their mark and land scarily close to the fleeing children. One burst finally hits the Alien squarely in the back, blasting straight through its frontside, nearly severing the lower half of its body. 

Shep hears a rustling and looks up to see an Alien moving through the treetops, hoping to get at him from above. The caster fires. The Alien leaps at Shep as the plasma ball blows up the tree. Shep uses the polearm to hook it by the shoulder, and uses the creature's momentum to flip it over to the ground. He turns to see another Alien -the last of the three- running up on his right. With no time to lock on target, Shep's gun fires rapid bursts. The Xeno evades by jumping clear over his head, landing on the fence behind him. Shep spins around and fires another shot. The creature springs away as a hole is blasted through fence. The Alien with the wounded shoulder rises and lunges from the rear, but Shep is alert. He impales the Xeno through the midsection with a backwards polearm thrust. Shrieking, it lashes out with its tail, knocking the gun from its mount. Shep growls and slings the beast at the other Alien, making it stumble back. Shep advances quickly with an overhead strike. Defensively, the Alien raises its arm to block. The bony fin blunts the blade's impact, but still it cuts through most of the xeno's right forearm. The Alien emits a distress call (peacock/elephant sound from Aliens) and withdraws. The impaled Alien is thrashing on the ground, grabbing at its wound. Shep leaps on it, stabbing or through the throat, killing it. Spurts of acid blood burn pits into his mask and shoulder pads. He ignores it to focus on the one-armed xeno.

The children have now reached the outpost. They bang on the door and yell out desperately to waken the staff. A light turns on in an upstairs window. One child cries out in terror. The girl turns to see the blasted Alien is still pursuing them, weakly dragging itself with its hands, the lower half of its body useless. The girl extends one end of the combistick. Screaming with rage, she runs up and stabs the Alien through the head, pinning it to the ground. The creature twitches, then stills. 

Lefty, the Alien with the nearly severed arm, bites off the useless appendage and drools a liquid resin on the stump of his wound, stemming the flow of blood. In a crouching position, he looks up at Shepherd and hisses warningly. But Shep is looking past him at something else. 

The fifth and final Alien enters the arena. Shep recognizes it by the webbed patten of lacerations covering its head and upper body. A shred of razor netting still hangs from its dorsal pipes. It is Web, the clever Alien that nearly killed him days earlier. 

Web approaches slowly with arms raised, tail hanging in the air. The Alien's silhouette in the glare of the lights is an image of lethal beauty. It brings the tip of its tail closer and closer to Shep's face, until the Predator swings at it. Web pulls back just in time. The Alien comes forward again. Shep swings once more. Web ducks underneath and, like a scorpion, his tail stabs Shep in the arm, then steps back. Shep clutches his wound and looks at Web. The Alien tilts its head, as if to taunt him. Shep snarls and attacks, but Web sidesteps and snares the Predator's foot with his tail, making him fall. Shep rolls and is immediately up again. Regaining composure, He stands ready. Web's lips pull back, baring his teeth. Seeming to grin with satisfaction, he begins to walk around Shep.

Lefty has been watching. Comprehending the new strategy, he joins in. The two Aliens circle the Predator slowly, just out of reach of his weapon, tails probing, arms reaching, constantly diverting his attention back and forth. One feints, the other darts in. Shep pivots and spins with his blades to keep them at bay, but they wear him down, inflicting numerous wounds with their tails. 

Shep thinks of his smart disc, holstered on his hip. Discreetly, he tries to reach for it, but Web feints again and Lefty dashes in low. Shep swings, slicing the tips from Lefty's dorsal tubes, but receives a slash across the thigh from his claws. Web's inner jaw takes a chunk from Shep's back. Bleeding from over a dozen wounds, Shep staggers and falls, one knee lands atop the shaft of his polearm. 

The Aliens pause to assess their prey. Their mouths drool copiously in anticipation of the kill. Shep breathes heavily. His hands adjust their grip on his weapon. He isn't done yet. He still has a few cards left to play. 

The Aliens converge. Shep snaps his polearm in two and thrusts a blade into each of their chests! 

Unfortunately, this does not stop their assault. In fact, it pisses them off. 

There is no reserve in their attack now. Barbed tails dig into the lone warrior's back. Clawed fingers tear at his chest and abdomen. Inner jaws punch at his armored facemask. 

Lefty sinks his teeth into Shep's neck and shoulder. This is finally an opening the Predator can use. 

With life fading fast, Shep summons the last of his strength and jams his wrist blades up through Lefty's neck and into his brain. The blade tips extend through the top of the his head. Acid blood spills down Shep's arm. As Lefty falls, the Predator shoves him at Web's feet. This allows Shep to take a step back and, with his other hand, draw the smart disc and slash deeply across the Web's throat. An acid spray douses Shep's head and upper body.

The two final combatant stand for a moment, acid steaming from both of them. Shep removes his mask, dropping it in the mud, and lays eyes on his last foe.  Blood flows freely from Web's neck, yet still he stands, refusing to die. 

Shep retrieves the two polearm blades, walks over to Web, and with a crossing motion, cleanly decapitates the Alien. It's body slinks to the ground. 

The Shepherd throws back his head and roars his victory to the falling rain, then collapses between the two Aliens. 

A vehicle approaches. The brave girl has led personnel from the outpost there to help. But what they find is beyond help. Or description. 

Dimly, the Sheperd thinks that he should probably erase evidence of himself and the whole grisly scene. He reaches for his wrist detonator, but realizes his arm has dissolved. 

The girl stares blankly, unsure how to feel about this cosmic monster that has saved her life. 

The Predator laughs weakly to himself as his body melts into a heap of smoldering yellow acid and glowing green goop. 

Darkness envelops. 

.................... 

Inside the colony complex, the main entrance doors slide open and the late afternoon sun slices into the darkness. Just outside stands a squad of Colonial Marines, with pulse rifles and smart guns ready. Twenty yards behind them, an APC can be seen, it's rotating gun turrets scanning for threats. They quarter and search by twos. As they move deeper into the complex, one pair finds signs of an Alien hive. The Marines follow it until they find a long corridor, it's walls completely covered in hive resin. The emaciated bodies of cocooned colonists line the hallway. The Marines press on until one of them notices a peculiar round object on the floor. He directs his shoulder lamp to reveal an Alien egg. The spotlight illuminates the translucent, leathery membranes and outlines the shape of the spidery facehugger inside. 

It begins to flutter... 

-End