As there were four different types that they were required to retrieve, each team was put in charge of one alien type. Alex's team was in charge of the baby alien, Nile of the warrior, Tyler had the drone, and Lily took on the facehugger.
After they chose which aliens they were responsible for, everyone headed for the surveillance room to find the location of the facehuggers and baby aliens that had yet to burst from their hosts' chests since they were less numerous than the drones and warriors.
In the end, Lily's group had to rely on luck to find the facehuggers that were clearly hiding to their utmost ability. Alex, on the other hand were lucky enough to have a set destination.
The rest of the groups decided to split up to cover more ground in the elimination of the aliens on the ship.
There was a nest of incubators in the men's lavatory located at the far edge of the logistics department (they had cameras in the bathroom but not in the stalls for what is privacy). She and Faust would travel together until Faust reached the control room, since the control room was along the way to the logistics department anyway.
Nile at first had on a heavy frown until Alex kissed him in front of everyone. It was originally a chaste kiss, but being the shameless man that he was, of course he would wouldn't settle for anything less than a French kiss.
Disregarding the almost sickening display of affection, everyone else in the seemingly small room coughed and cleared their throats awkwardly before heading out to gather their troops.
Of course, Taina was disgusted, while Lily didn't show any outward emotion, which was to be expected as an alien queen who prized procreation over feelings. The only reason she was going against Alex was not because Alex took her man, but because alex was the opposing queen. But, Taina didn't know her friend was no longer human and assumed that Lily was feeling out of sorts due to having her intended taken away by an unworthy slut.
Alex had no qualms in killing her own aliens--even the ones mentioned in a previous chapter way back--as her task was only to take 10 aliens as loyal subjects. She didn't need to ensure they survived.
To balance out the death rate of her own faction with Lily's, though, she had to make sure she killed plenty from both sides, otherwise with that protagonist halo of hers, who knew what could go wrong.
Then again, in her first two worlds, the protagonist halo was pretty much reduced to nothing thanks to her husband always being the ever-dominating male lead of the worlds. She didn't want to push her nonexistent luck, though.
Yeah, 001, you better keep that alarm shit off. I already know all about my luck. Or lack thereof.
001, who was shot even while lying down, [...this is why we can't get along. You clearly don't appreciate my efforts enough blahblahblahblah]
Alex casually muted him before she could get a headache from his rambling. Yes, it was possible as the contract they had was different from those other novels in that they were partners with equal power. If 001 could log off, so could she.
Back to the topic at hand, the team members that Alex was leading were initially worried about her being a researcher and inwardly questioned her capabilities in terms of leadership and combat, feeling that maybe Taina would have been the better leader. They didn't say anything but it was clear they thought that way from their forced expressions and mannerisms.
As the outspoken one who was already at odds with Alex from the start, Taina didn't hesitate to call Alex out in front of the group of not only Alex's combat squad, but also Faust's who were travelling with them for the time being.
"You should stay back lest you get hurt."
Then she took the reins, walking in the front along with two other members she deemed worthy to fight alongside her.
No one complained. The six members form the initial recon team were not in a rush to determine Alex's capabilities, but the other nameless cannon fodder were obviously much more relieved to have the leader change, albeit abruptly.
Alex just shrugged and let Taina do her job for her. As long as she didn't screw up, Alex was more than willing to laze around and take all the credit in the end.
Faust, of course, witnessed the entire exchange and wanted to retaliate but he saw that Alex, who usually didn't deal with BS--especially from the great families' legitimate line--didn't do anything herself and even seemed to be relaxing so he just sighed in resignation before deciding to keep silent.
That's why he didn't like his cousin. It was mutual dislike. She was too unreasonable and annoying to him even though he was usually gentle and courteous.
Taina directed a contemptuous smirk towards Alex due to her victory this time around, thinking of how unworthy she was of Niles love and that his love should belong only to Lily.
Even her cousin didn't dare to speak up when Alex's fighting capabilities were in question (self-proclaimed)!
When they had reached the point where both squads had to split up, Faust sent a gentle smile towards the flaming red-haired girl, "Good luck."
"En, you too, Faust," Alex casually waved as Taina didn't bother to stop and wait for them to say their temporary goodbyes.
Alex's loyal babies were no longer babies, so they had to go look for the hosts that had not hatched their eggs yet in the men's lavatory. There was also the choice of offering one of the team members up to a facehugger, which Alex wanted to offer up Taina to become another host but that's only if she pissed her off or if they couldn't find any.
More importantly, Duke was in charge of surveillance. She couldn't just sacrifice his sister in front of his face. Well she could but she would give him face for now. Also, killing Taina was not a task, and she was pretty much considered a supporting female character as the female lead's best friend. Though, she did die in the original timeline. Thinking in that way, it was probably totally fine to kill her off anytime.
Nevertheless, Alex wanted to have her fun before doing anything too drastic.
In the logistics block, nearing men's lavatory.
Taina took care of most of the aliens along the way with the help of the other two men. The recon team of six didn't see the need to step in and thus took up the job of guarding Alex, though they really wanted to gauge her strength. But, Nile was scarier to them than their interest in his wife, so they resolutely decided to not let her suffer even a tiny scratch.
Seeing how Alex was being so heavily guarded, thus thwarting her plan to "accidentally" hurl projectiles and stray bullets her way, Taina felt even more disdainful of the overprivileged queen.
If Alex could hear what the unaware Taina referred to her as in her mind, she would give her a standing ovation. She didn't know how right she was!
Anyway, everything went smoothly. A little too much.
Taina was being made reckless since she found that all of the aliens were actually easier to deal with than the starship crew made them out to be.
"As expected from the deficient and inferior bunch. Can't even take care of these small fry." She was referencing how Alex herself was incompetent and mediocre as a member of the original Starship 549 that couldn't even last fifteen days in the face of the aliens.
Alex quietly snorted to herself and stopped suppressing the aliens. She only suppressed them for the sake of the team members but now that Taina wanted a challenge then she would give her one.
Alex, Don't hold back, sweeties.
The aliens got noticeably more aggressive. The lavatory was already in sight and Taina, who had gotten impatient after hours of killing the aliens like a madwoman, didn't notice the warrior hidden in the vents above.
Stopping in her tracks and pulling the six recon team members along with her to a halt, Alex opened her mouth in an "attempt" to warn the girl, but she was too late.
With an unperceptively fast swipe of its tail, the warrior immediately separated Taina's dominant right arm from the upper arm down cleanly off from her body. He didn't end it at that, though. In a fit of cruelty and mercilessness, it spewed an entire fountain full of acid right onto her pretty little face, disfiguring the entire left half. Taina's ghastly screams and cries caused the other two men who were backing her up to panic and direct their attention to her, rather than the enemy in front of them.
They couldn't have been blamed. Having cruised so easily through the journey so far, they were unaware of how deadly and horrifying the aliens truly were--kudos to Alex who not only enabled such a nice experience but also dropped them straight into hell after they had gotten comfortable in heaven.
The three-man-team was quickly thrown into disorder and successively suffered painful injuries as one man was thrown against the malunimium wall as the warrior impaled him into it with its sword-like tail. Simultaneously, the large black alien screeched and rammed its ridged head onto the other man who was standing stupidly close to it.
He was rammed straight onto the irudisium ground, coughing out blood at the impact.
The recon team obviously couldn't just sit back and passively watch as their comrades suffered the one-sided massacre. It was just thst the entire exchange had take no longer than half a minute!
Just as their minds finally caught up with the situation and were about to step in, Alex had already beaten them to it with simply unsheathing her sword from its invisible scabbard known as the system space, slicing the warrior cleanly and vertically in half as she did so.
"Ouch," she giggled as she shook the blood off of the Sword of Oblivion with one downward swing so as to avoid splashing it at anyone, "That must have hurt. Stay back lest you die, brat."
Even the two men who were close to losing consciousness were mesmerized by her figure. Not only because of her skill but the beauty as she wielded the black sword. It was a lost art. In this futuristic time most people just used pulse rifles, guns, flamethrowers, and other long ranged weaponry for a variety of reasons. It was simply inefficient to use cold weapons like swords.
Taina's face had been utterly ruined and she lost her dominant right arm. She was no better than a handicapped person--on of those very deficient products she had been outwardly criticizing not even a few minutes ago.
The entire charade took place in front of the men's lavatory so all they had to do was step in. One of the medics took care of Taina and the other two men while the rest went into the lavatory to wait for the baby alien to claw its way out of its human host.
During the wait, the team thought back to how Alex had single-handedly dispatched the warrior in less time it took for one to blink and they each had a newfound respect for Alex. The two men felt as if they were slapped in the face as they struggled to kill a single alien as a three-man-team with Taina while she single-handedly killed them with a single swing of her sword; not even a single drop of blood was spilt as opposed to the tedious methods they had to employ so as to not cause the warrior to explode due to pressure...
The one who took the face-slapping the hardest was no other than Taina.
Taina used to only dislike Alex because of Lily but now that she was injured, and Alex was clearly capable, she blamed Alex for everything. Of course she could easily kill the aliens! How could she have forgotten the reason she needed to injure Alex in the first place! Alex was one herself! Taina was more motivated than ever before to cause Alex to suffer as much as she did if not worse!