Standing in the shadows of another person had, for the most part, been a fairly accurate description of Elizabeth's life to date. Many, many hours had been sunk into ruminating on her perpetual right-hand status, whether it was the unfortunate family extra in the wake of her parents' respective deaths, damn-near-permanent second-best throughout her experience in the field, or simply Charlie's Wife. No matter how much effort she put into something, she had almost always found herself playing second fiddle to someone else.

Though the doomed Prometheus mission had all the promise of being different, given these were her theories and her findings that had landed them here - oh, and how swimmingly that had gone! - she had, predictably, found herself being overshadowed once again by Charlie, then by David, left as the stuffy voice of reason as everyone else set about adventuring, sticking their fingers where they didn't belong, and making almost every decision throughout the mission despite her musings to the contrary. The few decisions she had made seemed to end in pain of some variety, such was the degree to which she had gone into this woefully underprepared.

Idly, quietly, she had wondered whether this was all fate, or whether she had a hand in it at all. There was always talk of controlling one's destiny, being the master of one's own fate, but she remained unconvinced - especially in light of recent events. She had, for all intents and purposes, thrown herself at this mission with all of her tiny might, and still been denied agency. It was as though she was destined to either remain in the shadows or dice with death.

Right now, quite literally, she was doing exactly the former. Even with the death of Charlie and the incapacitation of David, she was not the one calling the shots. Even as the only Human left alive on this piece of rock, she was relegated to follower. It would have been a lie to say it didn't bother her, but what choice was there? With the sun hanging heavy in the afternoon sky, rather than squint in the glare its golden rays as it bounced off the imperfections in her helmet, she had opted to stand in the huge shadow Za'il cast as he attempted, for a third time, to gain access to the crashed Engineer ship via the hidden pinpad that apparently refused to cooperate. Doing so had, despite its immediate practicalities, thrown her mind into the sort of self-deprecating, overthinking mode she preferred to avoid if at all possible; she especially preferred to avoid it when the trigger for it was still currently happening.

And yet, here they were. Little more than Human baggage, she had ample time to muse her dancing to the beat of the Engineer's drum.

An irritated sigh from beneath the elephantine mask above her finally stole her from her spiral of thoughts. Energetically shaking his head with raised, questioning hands, Za'il had apparently given up on using logic to gain access and had resorted to shouting at the airlock instead.

What a fantastic day this had turned out to be.

For a moment, she found herself hoping they would turn around and return to the lifeboat for a much-needed and much-deserved evening of rest. It was certainly impossible to know what he was thinking as he stared down at her from above, his bizarre helmet completely obscuring his face and rendering him absolutely unreadable. It occurred to her that, in the absence of spoken language, she had been projecting Human emotions onto his numerous facial expressions and hoping they stuck; without even that at her disposal, she couldn't quite swallow the welling of cold, roiling fear in the pit of her stomach - the very same fear that had stalked her from the moment she first laid eyes on him, the fear she thought she'd almost successfully shaken.

Perhaps she simply wasn't evolved enough a Human to be interacting with alien life forms, she reasoned. It had been painfully evident over the past week that she certainly had no business being out here, and couldn't fathom why she thought she should be in the first place. For the billions of people occupying the distant blue planet, for the hundreds of thousands of whom were directly involved in the art of Space, the study of things beyond the confines of Earth, it seemed laughable that an Archaeologist of all things was to lead the first major expedition in history bound for a planet supposedly teeming with life.

The Engineer got halfway through saying something to her in the most measured, even tone he could muster before trailing off with a huff, shaking his head again, and instead motioning for her to follow him as he turned to march alongside the starboard arm of the fallen vessel toward the stern.

He was grumpy, that much she could discern; if not for his stubborn march into the wind, shoulders squared and tense as he sped off ahead without her, his balled fists gave it away. His was the gait of a determined man, urgent but lacking any palpable arrogance about it, entirely fixated ahead and in an inordinate hurry to reach his target. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed he was rightfully irritated; perhaps grumpy was the wrong word.

Lingering somewhere between a trot and the cusp of a jog, Shaw found herself all but skittering after the immense creature as he continued to pull distance between the two of them. If it weren't for the pack slung over both shoulders, stuffed with equipment for the task ahead, she'd have considered simply turning back and heading for the couch aboard the lifeboat. He was still in an enormous rush and unamused by the setbacks so far, and having a Human tailing him was simply slowing him down. Perhaps it was better if she just-

The Engineer skidded to a halt without warning, turning on a heel as he looked back over his shoulder at her. With the language barrier alive and well, and being unable to read his face in lieu of comprehensible words, she was left trying to pick apart what body language showed through his heavy, intricate armour. There was the slightest hint of a slump as he turned to face her, arms hanging patiently - patiently? - by his side as she broke into a jog to catch up.

Tilting his head to the side as she reached him, by now puffing from running and able to smell her own sweat within the confines of the suit and helmet, he stole a moment to regard her from above before setting off again at a far more reasonable pace.

It struck her that whenever she had begun spinning into a vortex of self-deprecation, pre-planning an act of rejection or violence from him, he managed to surprise her with an uncharacteristically gentle or thoughtful gesture - just as he seemed to jolt her with an unpredictable outburst whenever she thought she had begun to understand him. Not exactly the most healthy of relationships, is it? Amazing what one will do to just bloody survive.

Wherever it was she was being led, she'd hoped this wasn't going to be it. He had stopped clear of any entrances along the hull, instead pausing below the overhang of the rear of the vessel quite a number of metres above, staring up at the looming lip directly above with the sort of intent she knew could only mean one thing.

Two huge hands leaning over her and wrestling with her pack confirmed her suspicions; as if this trip hadn't been action-packed and intrepid enough, they were now going full Indiana Jones and making the sort of entrance reserved for the fodder of movies. The repeated clank of mountaineering equipment being pulled free and tossed onto the ground left her grinding her teeth. Ain't no rest for the wicked, Doctor. Aren't you glad you did that godforsaken abseiling course a decade ago?

He cast her another drawn glance before handing her one of the harnesses and ascenders with noticeably less haste than he'd applied in the last few minutes. As she set about equipping herself, the wondered if her own tense, apprehensive facial expression had given her away; he certainly had the advantage of being able to actually see her with her clear helmet.

In the next breath, she found herself learning a new word in his language; the short, sharp syllable shouted at her was clearly a warning of some kind, and having looked upward as he darted aside, she'd immediately narrowed the possible meanings down. The clawed hook at the end of the rope he'd thrown had bounced off its intended target and come straight back down, landing right where she'd a moment earlier stood and rebounding against solid stone with a resounding clang.

Another familiar word followed - a meek apology, followed by a frustrated huff.

"They have a bit of a personality on them," she smirked knowingly, reflecting on a dozen similar failed attempts of her own over the years. After all, not every dig was in an easy-to-access, open pit; more than once she'd found herself armed with this equipment day after day, climbing for a significant portion of each day to access the most difficult-to-find ruins. "Let's see if I remember how it's done."

Ejecting the hooked end after a determined spin, Elizabeth seemed to have a little more luck than her enormous companion; with a tink and a familiar scrape, the hook snatched at the surface above and found purchase as the rest of the equipment deployed and latched on. It wasn't often that she found herself scaling rocks like this, but, for once, she was glad she had; she gave the rope a quick tug, then, as it stayed put as intended, she dragged the rest of her weight against it to make sure it wasn't going to drop her on her arse the moment she was high enough for a fall to do damage.

The Engineer murmured something quietly, offered a nod, and adjusted his throw to something far more like hers - with apparently more success, as was immediately evident as the device deployed alongside Shaw's.

Wasting little time, she set about hauling herself up the blasted rope and getting this expedition over and done with.

It was hardly surprising that he'd made quicker progress than her, longer and stronger limbs notwithstanding. Apparently he'd expected the same, having pulled himself up and over the ledge with swift, military form before poking his head back over it to see where she was - evidently he wasn't expecting her to be right behind him, because she could have sworn she heard a short gasp as he recoiled, their helmets mere inches from touching as he'd peered over.

Offering a hand as she reached the edge, he grasped her arm and hoisted her upward as if she weighed nothing. At this point she wasn't going to turn down a helping hand; the extra weight of the pack had left her gasping.

Another airlock sat at the end of a short corridor leading into the vessel; this one, much to her relief, yielded on the first try and hissed open. Muttering something that sounded distinctly like it contained some of the profanity he'd spewed on several occasions to date, Za'il stepped inside and waited for her to follow suit as he held one gloved hand over the door jamb, then set about marching down the corridor and along a route etched into hard-wired memory.

A cold shiver ran down her spine as her eyes traced the immense arches of dark ribs lining the interior of the vessel. Staying aboard the lifeboat for the last few days had, she realised, done wonders for her state of mind; the familiar, quantifiably Human design of the vessel was a salve for the torment of the days prior, spent picking around indescribably alien surroundings that had quickly become one with absolute terror and only gotten worse from there. This place, too, had immediately become synonymous with doom. Certainly the cargo hold was filled with it, for reasons still a horrifying mystery. Asking him about it couldn't end well, as much as she still wanted her answers.

The Bridge, too, was an altar to death in a far more literal sense. As Za'il paced ahead, clearly occupied with what remained of the navigation array, she froze in place when a glint of blue and orange flickered in the corner of the room below one of the malfunctioning, sparking lights. Limp, swollen, the three bloated corpses heaped against the wall had clearly been dead for several days. This was not what she wanted to see when coming here-

An almighty exclamation of disgust echoed about the walls; gasping as she turned on a heel, she quickly noted that the Engineer had his removed his helmet - and had promptly thrown it on the ground as he clamped both hands over his nose and mouth. More profanity followed, along with a wet-sounding, violent retch that damn-near left him doubled over.

That'll happen when you leave dead bodies on your Bridge, she mused, unable to shake the bitter expression that clawed at her features. Maybe less wholesale murder next time, if you don't like the smell.

Pulling a distinctly upset grimace, the Engineer swallowed hard and set about what he was doing, one hand remaining clamped over his nose and mouth. Pushing aside a mass of exposed cables, he clambered up the ruined navigation array and busied himself with a plethora of buttons.

With plenty of reason to keep her helmet on this time, Shaw set about searching for the other remains strewn about the place. The place where David's body had fallen was smeared with thick, white muck in a significant enough quantity that if he were Human, she mused, he would surely have bled to death. The far edge of the spattered puddle of ooze had been smeared off toward the edge of the room, away from the decomposing bodies. Perhaps at least his body was down there...

A blast of white and pale cyan enveloped her as she set about looking for the head; a shriek escaped her amongst the blinding, swirling haze of light. Behind her came the thud of two boots hitting the ground - she could barely make out the immense figure pacing across the room amongst the flurry of holographic worlds orbiting shimmering stars etched in beads of light, with only the gleam of the top of his head visible above the hubris of searing colour.

He must have noticed her fly-catching gawp; despite the horrific smell sullying the air, he offered a faint quirk of a grin as he reached into the swirling mass, pinching one of the floating planets with the tips of his fingers and dragging it down toward her. Cork-like, it bobbed as if floating on water as he released it, hovering a few inches from her nose as it resumed its languid rotation about its axis. Behind her, the Engineer gently batted another aside as he silently sank down into the Captain's chair.

Mouth still agape, she raised her own hand to gently paw at the orb; it had the same faint tingle about it as the holos from the projector he'd brought aboard the lifeboat, albeit far more noticeable given the vast scale of them and, she imagined, the far more powerful equipment aboard the vessel.

She twisted and turned the grapefruit-sized planet in her grasp, studying the rich features etched into its surface. At first it appeared to simply be white continents against cyan oceans, but as her eyes adjusted to its intense glow, the faint ridges of mountain ranges and canyons crawling across the numerous land masses became far easier to spot. The continents themselves quickly followed as her vision began to discern their edges. South America, Australia, Africa...it didn't take long at all to recognise it.

Shooting the Engineer a quizzical look over her shoulder, she cradled the tiny Earth between both hands as she clutched it close to her chest. She knew he was headed for it the moment this entire endless debacle launched into full swing, and she knew his people had planned a strike against them two millennia before they had awoken him, but there was something so incredibly undeniable, so absolute, about him identifying the planet amongst the hundreds of other holographic words floating around them and handing it to her.

The look he returned was probably intended to be reassuring, she reasoned, when she could find only warmth, no malice, in his eyes. His gaze lingered for a few seconds before shifting back to the console before him, leaving her to become consumed by the tiny Earth between her fingers.

Having become intimately familiar with the perils of assumption in the past few days, she was more than a little reluctant to resort to it at this point - however, it felt like the slick, understated gesture was almost a concession of some sort. It had been so casually executed, as if it wasn't intended to mean much, and yet...

Was he bequeathing the planet back to her as some sort of admission? Was he acknowledging a catastrophic misjudgement of her people, or a change of plan? Was he handing back control of the situation, or merely suggesting the planet was no longer a target?

Was she gratuitously over-thinking the gesture? Perhaps he was simply acknowledging where she came from.

She wouldn't have to agonise over it for long. With an anticlimactic bzz, the entire display - including Earth - blinked out of existence, leaving her overtaxed vision stumbling about the cavernous Bridge in the dark; moments later, a far smaller, dimmer hologram took its place in the very centre of the room, its increasingly familiar tunnels and towers gradually snaking their way outward from the fallen vessel's present position. This, she quickly recognised, must be the in-depth scan he had mentioned earlier.

Indeed, this holo was vastly more detailed than the last; these tunnels had doors and airlocks, their adjoining rooms filled with fixtures. Docked ships were more than mere outlines, and as the scan progressed, a few even began to show internal systems in fractured smatterings, tiny details slowly crawling outward in glowing, ant-like trails. And, troublingly, the coloured blips occupying many of the corridors no longer seemed round.

Shaw's eyes remained welded to one of the greenish blobs closest to her, lingering in a hallway at the farthest reaches of the third tower as quiet footfalls approached from behind. The Engineer crouched alongside her, out of arm's reach, pointedly holding his breath as he consciously kept his breathing shallow. The smell in the room must be obscene, she reasoned.

Grasping the illustrated corridor closest to them with the fingers of both hands, he drew the pinched points apart to enlarge the holo before them. The blip sitting to its far wall took shape as he enlarged the display again, with intricate contortions of sinew and structure forming across its surface; its unrecognisable shape reminded her of a fossil, huddled in a confusing mass of limbs and spines as if immortalised in amber.

After a moment the scanners made another pass, fleshing out detail throughout the hologram with a nearly imperceptible ripple of motion. The green thing took on a more intricate form, the straps of sinew becoming arms and legs distorted into the most horrifying of contortions. The elongated, smooth mass along the top of the nest of limbs must have been the creature's head - it looked no different to the sketch Za'il had made days earlier. Those details must have been burned into his brain, much as a mere glance had seared them into her own.

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