“What now?" Alyssa cried out in alarm.

“Aim for joints, any place where the armour is weaker!" John said curtly.

The two of them began to walk fire over the Kirrix abomination, shooting at knees, elbows, feet and hands. One of Alyssa's shots blow out a knee, spurting green blood over the walls and John's shot took out a foot on the other side, causing the Broodmother to skid in the slippery green ichor. It still kept coming though, screeching in fury.

They both emptied out their magazines, incapacitating two more legs, forcing the Broodmother to crawl forward using two of its foreclaws for support.

“Now!" John shouted “Go for the eyes!" as he slammed another magazine home into his rifle.

The two of them stood up and backed away slowly as they sprayed bullets into the face of the Broodmother. With only two foreclaws to protect its head, rounds began to strike home, hitting it in the eyes and even shooting off a quivering antenna. It finally got within striking range and lashed out with a six foot Long scythed claw, forcing John to leap to the side to avoid being eviscerated by the razor sharp chitin blade. Unfortunately for the Broodmother, this left its head completely exposed and Alyssa fired the entire clip into its face.

Shuddering, the hulking beast slumped to its side, letting out a croaking inhuman death rattle.

John looked up at Alyssa from where he had dived across the floor and he grinned at her victoriously. She returned the grin as she reloaded her weapon.

"Only one clip Left John" She warned him. "Yeah me too" he said with concern.

They gingerly stepped around the bullet ridden corpse of the Broodmother and headed into the big chamber in front of them. They walked past row after row of Kirrix grubs, not wanting to know what provided the flesh the hideous creatures were devouring. They finally reached the back of the chamber and a corridor led away from the room and up to another set of doors. John and Alyssa jogged up to the doors and then cautiously opened them, wondering what might Lay in wait in the next room.

As they opened the door, they were met with the sound of a horrible wailing human scream. They glanced at each other nervously and then moved through the door into the next chamber. This huge room was stacked floor to ceiling along the sides with chitinous cages, terrified human prisoners locked within. They overlooked a scene of nightmares in front of them.

Three naked human prisoners were restrained on a round platform in the centre of the room. The first, a man, was slumped over unconscious with drool falling from his mouth and his bloated stomach pulsing as rounded shapes writhed within his abdomen. The second was a woman, who was screaming in fear and Looking on in horror at her shipmate.

The third figure was another woman, her body obscured by the hulking insectoid form that hovered above her. It was over ten feet tall and had six limbs, four of which were holding its body up above her and the last set holding the woman it had mounted in place below it. A large bulbous segment grew out of its lower body which ended with an ovipositor, that was shoved deep inside the prostrate figure below. The woman was crying and groaning in horrified revulsion as small spheres passed down through the pulsating transparent section at the back of the creature and were pushed inside her tightly packed ass, her midsection bloating obscenely to accommodate the Kirrix eggs.

"Holy fuck!" Alyssa gasped in shock at the sickening sight.

It's the Hivelord!" John said grimly, “Aim for the back, its unarmoured there!”

The two of them dropped to one knee and began to open fire on the grotesque abomination, rounds punching straight through the Hivelords unarmoured abdomen and spraying green blood out the side of the creature. The Hivelord screeched in fury and pulled its ovipositor out of its victim with a sickening plop. It turned towards them, its mouth opened wide to bellow it's rage, only for Alyssa to blast the creature right between the jaws, her armour piercing rounds shooting through its mouth and punching into the nerve clusters at the back that led up to its brain. The Hivelord staggered to one side, crippled by the deadly shots and crashed to the floor in a tangle of twitching chitinous Limbs.

“That was a hell of a shot!" John congratulated the young woman, amazed at her uncanny accuracy.

She grinned at him and tipped an imaginary hat, making him chuckle. They stood and cautiously walked into the room, Looking for any more hostile aliens, but finding that they were now alone with the captured humans.

Pleas for help and desperate cries to be released began to echo around the chamber, as the terrified prisoners realised that against all odds, they had been saved by these two unknown heroes.

“We'll get you out, don't worry" Alyssa called out in a loud voice. John found a nearby console that operated the cages and began to open the chitin doors one by one. The prisoners within began to climb down the ladders that led up to each cage, in a desperate hurry to leave this horrible place. A small group of people went to help the abused victims on the central platform and after five minutes all the prisoners had congregated fearfully in front of John and Alyssa.

“Now follow behind us" John ordered them, "We'll lead you out".

They began to trace their way back up to the hangar, passing through the deafening wall of sound in the Kirrix nest and then up the ramps that led to the upper decks. As they reached the long corridor that would eventually lead them to the hangar, John's sensitive ears began to hear the distant sound of gunfire coming from ahead of them. Recognising the sound of Terran Federation assault rifles, he led Alyssa at a hurried pace to see what was happening in the Hangar.