Chapter 184: Parasites
I shrugged my shoulders, no longer really wanting to discuss my period.
"Any word on how to find a Hive?" I asked, turning to look at Midnight. The guys seemed to have clued in and were willing to switch the topic.
"I have asked Silver to get in contact with his source, but I haven’t heard from him in a few days," answered Midnight as he dug into the piece of raw meat in front of him. The three Saalistaja had a similar diet, although every so often, they would pick up a berry of some kind and eat that.
It was a good thing that blood didn’t bother me, or else our meals were going to be... difficult.
"I might be able to find someone to help, but I don’t know where they are right now; it might take a while for them to get the message," said Ye’tab as he brought the raw slice of meat up to his mandibles. The outer ones opened to reveal his inner mouth and tongue. Placing the meat inside, he licked the blood off of his fingers.
"Keep me posted," I said with a sigh. My brain still wasn’t working on all cylinders, but hopefully, with the rest of the guys, things would still go smoothly. Speaking of smoothly, I looked at the corner of the room and the monitor mounted to the corner of the wall.
"Is everything good with you, Jun Li?" I asked, wanting to check-in. The last thing I needed was some unknown side effects of his experiment to pop up at the worst possible sign.
"I am good, Mei Xing," responded Jun Li, his voice echoing through the room. "I have reviewed the video being exported to all corners of the galaxy, and I can easily prove it is fake."
"I don’t think I want to do that," I said, taking a bit of my waffle and slowly chewing it. "I had wanted to leave the ship whole as a fuck you to the Alliance, but then I turned it into a Viking funeral pyre," I continued. "Is there any way that you can make a change to the video but still have it be passed around?"
"Of course," answered Jun Li, and I could practically see him rolling his eyes.
"Then at the end, when you see the ship blow up and all the bodies floating around, can you add ’This is what happens when you play God. You have been warned—Merciless’?" I asked. If they were going to push my message out there, I might as well give them my warning at the same time.
Who knows, maybe some other species would be willing to join me in taking down the Alliance.
"Consider it done," replied Jun Li, and then there was silence.
"I like it," said Midnight, taking a bit of his steak. "Short and to the point."
"But will everyone know that we are sending out the warning to the Alliance?" asked Da’kea, ripping apart his meat and daintily taking a bite.
"I hate to break it to you, hunter, but anyone who is on the outside of the Alliance knows who tries to play God," answered Midnight. I had forgotten for a moment just what side of the line my men stood. Hopefully, this won’t be a problem in the future.
After breakfast, I went into one of the rec rooms on my level and turned on the TV. It took a bit of finagling to get it set up and the streaming services working, but at the end of the day, Jun Li got it to work.
Finding something to have on in the background, I pulled out my laptop from Earth and started to write up a proposition for the Hive Queen.
"Why do you want to work with the Hive so badly?" asked Da’kea, coming to sit beside me. He had a mug of something hot and steamy in each hand, and he offered one to me. "Jun Li said that you would probably like a cup of hot chocolate right now."
"Thanks," I replied, reaching up to grab the offering. "And to answer your question, why you have a whole bunch of people you want dead, it is generally better if you work with assassins that know what they are doing."
"But you are offering them planets," said Da’kea as the hatched opened once again, and the rest of the men came inside. I guess having my period was freaking them out enough to not let me out of their sight any time soon.
"I am going to offer them their planets back," I clarified, taking another sip of hot chocolate. I would have to go through the supplies again to make sure I was stocked up on essential human stuff... like hot chocolate.
"You know that they are a parasitic species that uses another living thing to host their egg until the young is old enough to hatch and consume the host, right?"
"Sounds a lot like the Alliance to me," I replied with a shrug. I was of the firm opinion that if it didn’t affect me and mine, I didn’t give a fuck about it. "And who are we to judge what is acceptable in a species or not? The Saalistaja are known for going from planet to planet, hunting the apex predator of that environment. There are a lot of people on Earth that would feel that that was unacceptable."
"What do you mean?" asked Ye’tab, cocking his head to the side and looking at me. "It is how we have done things since the beginning of time."
"And not once have I said a thing, now have it?" I shot back defensively. I didn’t care what they did. But you couldn’t decide the fate of an entire species simply because they didn’t conform to what you thought was acceptable.
"So how would the hunts be considered unacceptable according to Earth terms?" asked GA, his voice soft and soothing. I wanted to get up from my spot and crawl into his lap.
Apparently, this was a sookie period. Go figure.
