A Skullrox attack vessel, a Bleson Mark V, came looming out of the sky into view, but the locust’s pincers were already clacking over luminous dials on the console. The hull rocked to enemy fire, yet held. The ship flared into light oblivion, its sublight trails creating a cone of escape through the clouds beyond Demen’s dead moon and into the blackness of space. The dreadnought raged after, weaving fishtails of light, following at light velocity, firing forward cannons. Photon beams smashed into the hull, and Audra whined in exultation, remembering the wild chases she and Miko had shared for months on end, eluding Zikri and NAVO craft in the old days. They had been the most feared renegades of the galaxy! There was no way that Bleson skulker would catch them, provided this ship held up, which it would if she could keep the pilot focussed, and it didn’t try anything stupid.
Gibbering a feisty chitter, Audra looked about the command centre, her tentacles twitching. Her side throbbed. She pulled off a panel to a ventilation system, exposed some lead wires that she clacked together to generate a spark. She began to cauterize the pus-oozing wound of her excised tentacle. Zikri flesh sizzled, permeating the already stale cabin air with the smell of old leather and moss and ammonia. The trapped human looked on aghast through the glass. The locust pilot stirred, shivering beneath its carapace in restless unease, as if wondering what tortures the tentacled monster would inflict next. Audra cauterized some more flesh.
* * *
The enemy ship had dropped out of the fleeing Doraxu’s light cone. Likely given up, or the Doraxu’s jumps through the black gulfs were untraceable.
Audra stared at the dead trooper sprawled in an ungainly heap at the back loading dock, wondering what to do with the human. A rare hunger was on her, despite having consumed the salty meat of the two-headed human back on the desert planet. She contemplated eating the spare locust. No, better to save it. Ordinarily she would have felt quite sated, even kept such a specimen for experimental amusements when the mood came on her, but the violent nature of the last two-headed creature and the warlike circumstances of late had spoiled such a mood. All these aggressive creatures... Everywhere she went, they were trying to kill her. They did not recognize her physical strength or mental prowess.
Her eyes took in the Skullrox guard. His glare of hate and horror at his situation was palpable. Her polyped face curled in a grin. At the very least, he would become a source of food in the immediate future. Life had become dull of late. Her creative mind churned over some interesting innovations. The tank even could prove an interesting sexual arena for her and Miko, if she could lay tentacles on him, and provided she removed the filthy locust from its midst. All in good time. A chitter of anticipation rose from her mottled gullet, which the guard seemed to hear through the glass and shivered fitfully in his liquid prison. The locust pawed at the man, resenting being crowded in his private aquarium.
Audra loosed another chitter.
Blackish green blood dripped on the floor where she hovered. The wound had not fully healed. She regarded the tentacle stub with critical attention. Still four healthy ones intact.
Audra dragged the dead soldier across the floor and up into the remaining tank. Perhaps the body could come back to life. A sneer touched her wormy lips. Only a slight ripple caressed the man’s body as it touched the water. He floated limp with eyes staring and rank blood fouling the greenish water.
She decided the human would serve as food when the locusts ran out.
She gave up trying to cauterize her wound. But she recalled the healing power of the locust fluid, and shoved her half shorn tentacle into the water with the dead man. The flesh immediately began to knit back together. At least this act seemed to accomplish more than her last crude attempts. The scientist that she was, pulled the near-healed member out of the fluid with a complacent chortle.
* * *
While the ship bounded beyond a nameless binary star in the Menanese system, she thought to force the quivering pilot to better aquaint her with the weapons’ panel.
The locust was more than obliging and its claws moved deftly over the pullsticks and heat-seek trackers, movements which Audra mimicked with unsurprising ease. Twin laser cannons trained out into space with reaches up to ten miles at 100 megathrusts of arc-push at near warp flyby capability. Not shabby for a primitive locust craft. She did not doubt that she would have further use for this weaponry.
A questing tentacle curled around the locust’s neck, pressing a sensitive spot between ear and thorax. In this way the Zikri communicated the urgency of tracking the fleeing Jakru vessel. The locust punched in some communication sequences. The holo view came to life.
A video log of activity played back in fast motion. Audra saw the last most significant events: the Skullrox freighter grappling the locust vessel, then the white trail of the sleek, silver-gunmetal Jakru fighter escaping the ridge under enemy fire. Audra stabbed out a feeler showing a last imprint of the Jakru’s escape vector. The locust backtraced the light signature, and tapping keys, pulled up a far world with an orbiting fleet of ships. A hiss of vindication came to Audra’s otherwise triumphant chitter. She would follow Miko to the end of the galaxy, and his new band of allies. The ungrateful human would not escape...
* * *
“Damn it, Zaul,” cried Lexia, slapping her palm on the bridge’s console. “Who was it that sold me to the Mentera?”
“I have my suspicions,” said Zaul.
“Last I remember was sipping that
