They came upon the rows of tanks spread to the sides and Krin peered curiously. Rows upon rows of transparent glass containers gleaming in the eerie light, resplendent in their greenish liquid and horrid living contents. While Krake’s servants ushered their haul forth on mechanized drays, a dozen more tanks with human occupants, Krin entertained little doubt that these victims of the Cybernetics Corp raid would slake the Mentera’s lust for sustenance. Others possibly to power their insidious amalgamators, a light drive system of its own, which allowed them to pop up anywhere between sets of parallel plates like ghouls. Perhaps such hapless souls powered their entire space station for all he knew.
Consul Jnedz approached with a translator box clutched in a pincered claw. With his insectoid face carved in an expressionless grin, he was a smallish specimen rising only neck high to Krake, slightly lower on Krin, hunched on splayed hind legs like a repentant mantis, his left pincer glinting with impressive jewels. But the red eyes stared unblinking, black antennae twitching, unnerving even the taller Zikri, his plated skull gleaming in the otherworldly light like a sinister beacon.
After a desultory introduction, Krake conversed with Jnedz, and Krin waited patiently off to the side, dutiful in his deference to his betters who discussed matters beyond his authority. He took time to study the tanks and their gape-eyed victims. Strange tubes extended from the stoppered plugs on the glass tops, which the locusts inserted in their navels to refuel. Several did so now, either kneeling or sitting next to a tank, hooked from navel to tank in symbiosis with a human or animal organism trapped within the greenish brine. The humans hunched within like toads, much to Krin’s disgust. Everything pulsed with a sickening green glow. The storage and feeding chamber was enormous, a steel-plated dome that ran hundreds of feet upward into a plum-coloured murk. He would be anxious to quit this living mausoleum, return to his own ship and resume his hunt for the renegade human.
Krake glided over to Krin somewhat pleased. There was a flush to his grey cheeks, a buoyancy to his step.
“Your intuition was well-founded in returning to the base. The prisoners were well-received by Consul Jnedz. Along with the timing of the delivery of the colonists, it has cemented positive relations between our two nations and has given us more clout in our negotiations. The Mentera will go out of their way to support us and to expand our reach by tipping us off to more vessels and colonies, easy prey to Zikri rapine.”
Krake reached out a tentacle to touch Krin’s cheek. “You have done well, Krin. I will make note of this at your indenture hearing coming up before the Tribunal presided over by Admiral Nrog in the next moon.”
Krin raised a tip of his own tentacle, suppressing a sly smirk.
“Nrog will make us strong,” uttered Krake. “The joint invasion will create a new order in the universe, one which will even set the Mentera reeling with trembling hearts!”
Krake’s communicator sounded and he grasped it in a tightly-coiled tentacle, answering it with a chitter. His face turned grim. He hung up, turned a cold, reptilian glance upon Krin. “It seems a certain package was discovered on your ship. In a hidden place. The ship I loaned you. It was a human in a tank.”
A knot of icy fear gripped Krin’s guts. He jerked himself upright.
Krake raised a tentacle upward, a signal for his escort to apprehend the subcommander.
Krin instinctively grabbed Krake’s two upper motilators. He pulled him in close, unleashed his most savage strength. Taken by surprise, Krake lurched back, quivering in agony, fighting the unrelenting grip which threatened to tear him apart. His eyes bulged and Krin heard Krake’s upper cartilage snap as tendons ripped and what might have been bone. A dozen angry memories of being humiliated before his superior flooded his mind as he clutched his tormentor. Krake’s choking gasp was the last thing he heard spraying from his gullet before Krin hurled him into the abyss that dropped to the side. Krin watched the flailing body plunging below into the blue-blackness.
Krake’s Zikri escort paused stunned, then charged with wild chitterings. But Jnedz’s locusts stepped forward and held them back, threatening them with their lumo sticks. Two of the loyal Zikri were brave enough to charge the line, only to fall in sizzling, smoking heaps as the Consul’s guards opened fire.
Jnedz clattered over, breathless, his clicking voice a blemish on the sudden silence. Instantly the locust seemed to grasp the gist of what had happened and his beady red eyes narrowed on Krin. “Where is ambassador Krake?” his voice rang over the translator. “Dear me, Subcommander, it seems as if you have done something rash. I think you are in serious trouble here.”
Krin brainstormed ways of handling this predicament in a diplomatic way. A daring strategy began to form in his head. “So are you, Consul. How ill do you think it will go for you when Admiral Nrog hears about this outrage, how Krake died on your watch, under your protection?” Krin paused, watching the Consul’s reaction which was startled at best. “But it doesn’t have to be like that.”
Jnedz blinked, surprised but not cowed. “What do you propose?”
“Let me take command of Krake’s ship. I will cover this fiasco up, take his starship a hundred light years from here and dispose of his crew. These Zikri of Krake’s, your locusts can take to the tanks.”
Three of Krake’s Zikri lunged and another fell to the lumo-sticks of the locusts. The others backed off, chittering.
The Consul considered the proposal. “It’s not exactly a fair trade. The assassination of your superior is a treasonous offence. What else do
