Chapter 170: Phase One
Fucking hell. Now was not the time to develop a conscience. Was there any way I could squash that down? I mean, it’s not like I was going to save any of the rest of them, and keeping him alive would only cause him to be pissed off and resentful if he was to become the last of his species.
Which in turn would make him try to hunt me down and kill me.
See... being nice and merciful was not what it was cracked up to being.
I felt bad for killing him, and I felt bad for saving him. This was really not going to work out well. Why did I need to go out and develop feelings? I was much better off when I just copied what I saw from other humans.
"Please have a seat," said the nice guy, leading me to one of two seats on the shuttle. The rest of the males, including Midnight, simply grasped onto the straps hanging from the ceiling. I nodded my appreciation and sat down.
Nice Guy leaned forward to try and help me buckle the seatbelt, but a low growl from Midnight quickly put a stop to that. The Sisalik quickly scurried away while my only visible mate dropped to his knees in front of me.
Cocking his head to the side, he studied me as if trying to figure out how I was doing. He wasn’t supposed to talk, so it wasn’t like he could just ask, but whatever he saw on my face caused him to grunt as he gently untangled the five-point seatbelt and quickly got me strapped in.
He nuzzled the side of my cheek with his muzzle before standing up and returning to his original place beside me.
"Never seen a Njeriuujk act like that before," sneered one of the lizard guards, trying to get a rise out of Midnight. However, the other male simply ignored him.
"I’ve never seen a Njeriuujk look like that before," answered another guard, the two of them staring at Midnight like he was some type of circus freak.
"And I have never seen a lizard able to talk outside of commercials. I guess we are even," I shot back, realizing too late that they would not be able to understand my references. Sheesh, these guys put the ’fun’ in ’funeral.’
Their head swung over to me, no longer paying attention to Midnight. I smiled and waved at them.
"You know you are going to die, right?" demanded the first guard, no longer bothering to hide their true purpose.
"What?!?" I asked in a theatrical manner. "But I thought that I was here to save you from the pirates that aren’t even attacking you!" I raised my hand to my forehead before flipping it around so that the back of my hand was resting against my skin. "Woe is me."
All the males on board looked at me like I was crazy. I shrugged my shoulders in return and leaned my head against the vibrating wall of the ship. I was here to find a way to plug Jun Li into the Sisalik systems, clean them out of any supplies that might be useful for me, and kill everyone on board the ship.
In other words, they were still going to get raided by pirates; they just happened to have invited me on board to do it.
"I have never seen a species like you," said Nice Guy, trying to quickly change the topic. I didn’t know if he was upset that the other one had blurted out the plans or if he was trying to calm me down so that I didn’t understand what was going on.
"And if you are lucky, you never will again," I answered him with a serious look on my face.
"I don’t understand how you could have lived as long as you have," pipped up a fourth guard, his eyes shining as he looked at me. "You are completely defenseless. You have no claws, skin that is easily damaged, and teeth that are filed down. Did the Njeriuujk do that to you? File down your teeth?"
I could feel Midnight tense beside me, but I simply leaned my head against him as best I could.
"I get that question a lot," I said with a sigh. "And all I can say is that I am not the species too stupid to live. We do just fine on our own."
"Still, it is clear that there are no predators on your planet. Maybe we should go and pay it a visit. Get a pet of our own," chuckled the second guard who had spoken. He nudged the first guard and cocked his head toward me.
"We make horrible pets," I assured the lizard with a smile as I felt the shuttle shudder. Finally. "We are territorial, don’t share well, and the females of my species are the worst of all of us."
All of the guard’s heads turned toward me at my statement. "You are territorial? How can you defend it?"
"By being smarter than the average bear," I shot back. Undoing the seatbelt, I stood up, coming to my relatively unimpressive height. "Now, take me to your leader."
------
Da’kea was the first one off of the transport vessel. Slipping his way around the guards and soldiers, he quickly scaled the nearest wall and clung onto the ceiling of the hanger bay. His nano armor gave his hands and the balls of his feet traction to be able to climb and stay put for an extended period of time.
Usually, this allowed his kind to climb trees or the side of a cliff and wait for their prey to come, but this was the first time that he had ever used it in a spaceship. He watched half of the guards leaving the shuttle before his mate and the Njeriuujk were escorted out. The remaining guards followed behind them, leaving the hatch open.
Stupid males. His female was right. There were some beings that were too stupid to live.
While Da’kea was studying the layout of the hanger bay and the number of beings inside of it, he felt something crawling up his leg. Twisting his body around so that he could look at his leg, he wasn’t able to see anything. Switching his vision to night mode, he still saw nothing. It wasn’t until he had gone through all the different vision settings that he began to believe he was going insane.
He could feel something walking up his legs, back, and chest, only to come to a stop on his shoulder. However, try as he might. He couldn’t see a thing.
Suddenly, there was a chirp as Night came into view for only a second before disappearing again.
Da’kea paused for a moment, completely stunned by what just happened. He knew that the voragyvis were reported to be deadly. Still, he had never actually encountered one of them in person. He, like most other sentient species, was brought up to understand that those creatures were highly poisonous and were to be avoided at all costs.
He had assumed that since he had never come across any, they were incredibly rare, so he didn’t put much thought into them. However, now he wondered just how many he had encountered without knowing it at all. Then he started to count his blessings that he wasn’t killed without knowing who or what did it.
There was another chirp, pulling Da’kea back to the present. The envoy with his mate had just left, closing the door behind them. Releasing his grasp from the ceiling, the Saalistaja Elder silently dropped to his feet.
His purpose was to ensure that there was a fast escape if needed. In order to have that happen, he swiftly boarded the other ships in the bay, dismantling them just enough that no one would notice unless they were trying to fly them.
------
Au’dtair followed his mate, almost plastered to her side. The Sisalik guards were trying to intimidate her by using their height and proximity. Still, his pet wasn’t allowing any of that. She looked forward and strolled down the ship’s corridors like she owned them.
And in a little while, she would.
He thought back to the words that she had spoken and realized that, in her own way, she was warning the lizards. She was territorial, and she was deadly. Now, it was just time for the rest of the universe to understand that.
It was his job, his honor, to be the inviable guard beside her. She knew what might happen to her once she was at the mercy of the Sisalik, and he was there, not to keep it from happening, but to keep it from going overboard.
"I can handle the pain," she had said to them when they were still on her ship. "I cannot handle them removing anything."
Au’dtair cracked his neck back and forth, refusing to let out the low growl that threatened to escape. If they tried to remove anything, then all that awaited them was a slow and painful death.
----
Ye’tab, peeling away from the group, rushed down the hall on silent feet, thinking about what his mate had told them in private.
"I need you to do me a favor," she had said in a low whisper.
