Chapter 237: A Complex Species
Pippa stormed off of the bridge and down the hall of the ship. "That fucking bitch! She wants to rub it in my nose that she is the fucking chosen one?!? The fucking whore who is willing to spread her legs for anyone and everyone? Fuck her."
She walked into the rec room and looked around for something, anything that she could break. Spotting a vase that looked like it was made of crystal, she picked it up and launched it across the room. The sound of the glass shattering was hidden by her screams of rage as she picked up the smaller table and launched that right after the vase.
"It was supposed to be me! I was to be royalty, not some fucking bitch that thinks she is better than everyone else. But I’ve shown her, haven’t I?" There was a slightly crazy look in Pippa’s eyes as she continued to scan the room.
The larger furniture and chairs were all locked into the floor, something that she had found out the hard way when she tried to pick up and throw a chair. They were placed on a track and could only go forward and backward, but that was it.
Everything else that could easily be broken was already gone.
Letting out a scream, Pippa collapsed onto the floor, tears pouring out of her eyes as she started laughing. "I’ll show her. I’ll show everyone just what happens when you cross me. I kill her. I’ll kill them all for choosing her over me. Why would they choose her?! It’s me they should want. Me! I’m in one in charge of the universe right now! But that’s fine. They will learn... I’ll teach them all."
----
"Jun Li!" I yelled as I entered the living room and went to sit down on the couch in front of the fireplace.
"Yes?" asked Jun Li as he and the remaining guy filed in and got themselves comfortable in their usual chairs.
"I need every last bit of information on what Pippa, Stargazer, and the other humans have been up to since they first appeared. Even before, if you can go through the internet. It wouldn’t surprise me if Pippa and the others had some sort of social media accounts before they were abducted," I said, practically hissing as one of the smaller bots brought me my coffee from the command bridge.
"Thank you, sweetie," I said absently. Petting the bot on the head.
I circled my head, trying to get the kinks out. There was nothing that I hated more than to be made a fool of. It almost never happened, but this time... this time Pippa Flynn managed it.
"I can help with that," offered Ye’tab, accepting his own drink from one of the bots. "Especially if you can tell me what it is that I am looking for."
"That’s the problem," I grunted when Midnight sat down beside me and picked up my feet in his hands. Taking off my slippers, he started to massage them. "It’s not going to be anything obvious," I continued, leaning my head against the arm of the couch. "It is going to be something that is easily overlooked. Hell, there might not be anything at all."
"Are you sure that you aren’t overeating?" mused Tha’juen thoughtfully as he took a sip from his drink. He ended up choking on it as Da’kea, who was sitting beside him, slapped him hard upside the head.
"She’s not," grunted GA. "Never has she overreacted to any situation."
I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. "Truth be told. I don’t know," I said just as Midnight hit a particularly sensitive spot on my foot, making me melt deeper into the couch. "It is more like a feeling I can’t put my finger on. Within moments of meeting her, I dismissed her as being too stupid to live. She displayed all of the characteristics of someone who was not overly intelligent and who used her looks to get her way."
"And you don’t think that way anymore?" asked GA, trying to get a read on my thoughts and feelings. Good luck with that. I couldn’t even figure out my own thoughts and feelings at this moment.
"She never wavered... and now, looking back, that wouldn’t match with the persona she displayed."
"Do you have an example? The complexities of your species are much greater than any others that I have encountered," said Da’kea, leaning forward to study my face.
"I told her that we were here to be universal breeders and that it was the Alliance’s idea," I explained. I thought back to that moment, and now, looking at it from a fresh perspective, her reactions weren’t normal.
"She was too quiet, too quick to try to the Alliance," I continued, lost in my thoughts. "There is no human woman that I know that thinks being a breeder is a good thing. We almost have it programmed into us to be outraged at that very term. It is also one of those things that we drop everything and stand shoulder to shoulder against."
I closed my eyes, picturing exactly what Pippa looked like when I told her. She looked down.
"She knew," I muttered, more to myself than the others. "Sure, she played it up once she got over her original shock that I knew. But she was well aware of what was going on."
"Maybe she was an unwilling participant," pointed out Tha’juen.
"It’s possible. There are women in cults that have been raped repeatedly and still offer up other women to experience the same thing. But those are the exceptions, not the rule," I disagreed. The more I worked through it all, the more sense it made.
But it was like a puzzle. I could see the overall picture but not the specific pieces.
"Anyways," I said, shaking my head. "We need more information to truly figure out what is going on."
"On it now," grunted Jun Li from where he sat in one of the chairs beside the fireplace. "Pippa has a ton of social media posts on different platforms. It is taking me some time to gather all the information."
"That’s fine," I answered with a wave. I was practically asleep, thanks to Midnight’s magical hands.
"One last question, if you don’t mind," said Da’kea. "I don’t understand just how you declared war. I was there, and I didn’t hear anything along those lines."
