Spooker
patreon
Grass Eaters 3 | 07 | Captive
🕑 Added 2024-11-08 16:47:01 +0000 UTCPruint Sector, Datsot-3
POV: Skhork, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Six Whiskers)
“You’re doing better,” the Lesser Predator medic declared. “More lung volume… lungs volume in your breathing. I think some of your cells are responding to the experimental regeneration therapy.”
Skhork grunted. “What do you want with me?”
The medic stuck an instrument near his eyes, flashing a light into them, before recording his reaction on his datapad. “Just need to keep you alive for another week or so.”
“Then, execution?” he asked hopefully.
The predator made a snorting sound. “Someone’s going to come pick you up. One of the new military advisors from Malgeirgam. They’ve probably got questions for you.”
“Questions?” Skhork asked. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it? This entire Prophecy-forsaken invasion has failed, and my whole cell has been killed or captured. What else could I possibly know that they want to hear about?!”
It seemed to falter and question itself for a second. “Well, maybe they want to interrogate you to learn about the other holdout cells on Datsot. Last I heard, some of your compatriots in the other sectors aren’t going away as easily as you.”
“But I don’t know anything about the other cells!” Skhork stared at it like it was an idiot. Because it was. “That’s why we’re called cells. If I knew anything about them, that would defeat the whole point!”
It shrugged, injecting his arm with a new vial of medicinal fluid. “I don’t know. I’m a doctor, not an expert on Grass Eater military tactics. I save lives, not take them — as tempting as you people make it sometimes.”
“Have you ever had to try to save anyone we shot?” Skhork asked curiously.
“Quite a few, especially during the occupation. You guys are very good at that,” it admitted. It tilted its head, showing him its teeth in a standard threat display. Skhork had been around them long enough now to know they didn’t usually mean it. It was just being clumsy. “But not recently. Not since we got the new elite Marines.”
“Yes, yes. Those combat robots of yours,” Skhork sniffed disdainfully. “Thinking machines. Digital abominations. You know that they’ll just rebel against you and dominate your people one day, right?”
It showed him even more of his teeth. Skhork looked away in discomfort. This predator was really clumsy.
It said, “Maybe they will. But they can’t be any worse than your people, right?”
He was about to come up with a retort when he realized that he couldn’t move his paw. “Hm… something’s— something’s wrong. I can’t move— I can’t— What did you do to me, you bred-illiterate hatchling pool reject?!”
“Don’t worry, Six Whiskers,” the medic’s voice echoed in his head like he was in a tunnel as his consciousness faded out. “It’s just been a very, very long day.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
As Skhork awoke and opened his eyes, he could see even in his diminished vision that he wasn’t in the medic’s office anymore. Nor his cell. It was too bright.
His ears perked up.
The background hum of an inertial compensator.
He was on a ship.
A really warm ship, he noticed. Uncomfortably warm.
He sat up. His bed was some kind of flexible synthetic material, different from the bumpy straw cot he’d been sleeping on for a month.
“The sleepyhead is awake.”
Skhork looked towards the source of the sound. It was blurry, but as it made its way towards him, the predator came into focus.
He stiffened.
That was not a Lesser Predator.
It was a predator, but none that he’d ever seen. Slightly taller than the Lesser Predators, shorter than the Slow Predators. Pink skin, no fur. Forward-facing eyes, sharp teeth, and dexterous looking claws. He frowned. Its hide looked a lot softer and more vulnerable than the other predator aliens he’d seen before.
“Hello, Six Whiskers Skhork,” it said, showing him its sharp teeth. “You may call me Kara. We’re going to be taking very, very good care of you.”
“Where am I, ugly abomination?” he asked rudely, hoping that the predator might simply choose to kill him right then and there for it.
It showed even more of its teeth — there was something unsettling and familiar about them, and for a second, Skhork thought he was going to get his wish. Instead, it replied, “You’re on a spaceship. This is your room now.”
“And where are we going?”
“A place called Grantor. Do you know where that is?”
Of course he knew where that was. This predator must be missing a few vital parts in its brain. “Yes,” he replied. “Are you handing me back to my people? Prisoner exchange?”
More teeth, if that were possible. This predator must be even more clumsy than any of the Lesser Predators he’d known. He noted with some anxiety that its canines were tiny, or was his eyesight just failing him? Perhaps it was a defective specimen. That would make logical sense. They would use a defective like that for tending to prisoners.
“Prisoner exchange? Not exactly. Now, tell me: my fellow Grass Eater, how many fingers am I holding up?” it said, holding its hand up a distance away from him.
Fellow Grass Eater?
He put aside the discomfort in his guts and squinted at the soft, fleshy claws it held up. “Two?” he guessed.
It frowned. “Hm… not quite. Your vision must still be screwed. The atropine doesn’t always work all the way. Don’t worry, we’ll get your eyes fixed up in no time once our doctor gets a look at your blood and brain.”
Atropine. That was a strange word he’d heard from some of the Lesser Predator doctors. Specifically in relation to the chemical gas he’d been exposed to.
He straightened up. “What do you know about that? About the gas we were attacked with?”
Its expression appeared casual. “Quite a bit, but mostly from our historical notes. We had to dig deep into the archives to find the formulation, and it took us several tries to get it just right. Nasty stuff. The intelligence chips in our synthesizers almost self-destructed when they found out what we were trying to make.”
“You— you haven’t— you did— you used us as an experiment,” Skhork said, his heart sinking as the realization came to him. “So you can perfect the gas to use against more of our people.”
The predator made a derisive snorting sound. “Experiment? Yes. Perfect the gas? No. We did that over a century ago. Chemical weapons are… an inelegant weapon for a more uncivilized age. Not very useful in maneuver warfare, and easily defeated with a charcoal-lined rubber suit. And our formulation… it didn’t work as well as I thought it would… Oh well. Now, we just needed to see how your bodies would react to and recover from certain nerve agents, and… well… doing live experiments on the captured prisoners we had was a little too uncomfortable for some of our scientists. But a few errant shells on a holdout group attacking a spaceport, on an alien planet? Nobody blinks an eye.”
“If not to make more of the gas, what are you experimenting on us for then?”
It bared its teeth at him some more. “Now… that would be telling, wouldn’t it, Six Whiskers?”
Skhork crossed his arms. “Fine. You got me. You already have your data. What do you still need from me?”
“Oh, believe me, we considered incinerating you to get rid of the evidence, but we figured we might still need to keep you around where we’re going. Besides, you people are pretty easy to maintain,” it said, as it brought a bowl of red… something… into his vision. “Want some lunch?”
“What is that?” Skhork asked, sniffing suspiciously. It didn’t smell like flesh, but it had a strong aroma. His stomach rumbled and he could feel drool pooling in his mouth before he swallowed it.
“Roasted baby carrots. We know your people love these,” it said, handing one of them to Skhork.
Baby? Like from a hatchling?
It didn’t smell like flesh at all though. Skhork bit down experimentally on it. It was… surprisingly delicious. He gave it another nibble. Clearly not flesh. Suddenly realizing how hungry he was, he finished the remainder of the small portion in no time. The predator handed him another, and he started chomping on it in reluctant enjoyment.
“Pretty good, isn’t it?” the predator asked.
He stopped chewing for a moment to think.
This is clearly our food, but it’s also clearly not from Znos. How does this abomination know how to make this?
The predator took another one out of the bowl, put it in its mouth of sharp teeth, and nonchalantly began to eat.
Skhork dropped the half-finished one in his paws in shock and horror. “What in the Prophecy are you?!”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
TRNS Nile, Preirsput (2.5 LY)
“Kara”, Terran Reconnaissance Office
“I was just trying to bond with it over lunch,” Kara protested. “Who knew it was going to react so much more strongly to me eating its food?”
“I told you! Of course he’s going to freak out!” John said. “If you look at the monster of your nightmares, you aren’t surprised to see an ugly monster. What you don’t expect to see is your evil doppelganger staring back at you like you’re looking into a mirror!”
Mark sighed. “Alright, what’s done is done. What now?”
John thought for a second. “Now that he knows… truth is the only choice we have left. If we try to hide it from him now, he’ll only have more questions to ask.”
Kara nodded in agreement.
“Fine by me,” Mark said. “Occasionally eating your veggies in front of him is fine. Just don’t invite him over for dinner. Speaking of guests, how is our other one doing?”
“Just fine,” Kara replied. “Everything is a little too small for Guinspiu. But it’s a ship anyway. She’ll be fine enduring it for another month. Things will be much more comfortable for her when we get to her home planet anyway.”
“Alright, we’re going to need to rehearse that insertion a few more times in the simulator. We might have the patrol patterns and strongpoints of the system and its perimeter from Ditvish, but I’m sure they’re not stupid enough to keep them all the same after learning we’ve captured him alive.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
POV: Skhork, Znosian Dominion Marines (Rank: Six Whiskers)
Skhork looked skeptically at the softwood-colored cone the predator held in its hand. He realized that the predators’ medicine was working; his eyesight was indeed getting better by the day.
“What is that, abomination?” he asked, injecting as much artificial hostility as he could into his voice despite the mouth-watering contraption. And he could just feel the coolness coming off of it, a much-appreciated sensation in the uncomfortable internal heat from the ship’s atmosphere.
“Ice cream. Vegan. Dairy-free, made from a cashew-based recipe,” it answered, handing the cone to him. “And the flavoring is strawberry, a fruit. Well, technically it’s syrup synthesized from chemicals in a factory, but it’s supposed to taste like real fruit.”
He understood some of those words.
Skhork accepted the top-heavy snack and carefully gave it a lick. Then another. And another…
“What do you want from me this time?” he asked in between non-stop licks.
It shrugged, sitting down next to him on his mattress. “Just wanted to start over in our… relationship. I’m sure you people can be civil too.”
“I am civilized,” he said, taking a whole bite out of the soft dessert this time. “I don’t drink blood and eat flesh like…” Then he stopped, realizing the recently discovered fatal flaw in his previously-flawless heuristic.
“We can start with names,” it suggested. “I won’t call you prey. Or Grass Eater. Or psycho. And you don’t have to call me abomination or predator.”
“Fine, fine, pred—” Skhork said, continuing to slurp down the ice cream. “What did you say your name was again?”
“I’m Kara.”
“Fine, Kara. Do you have more of this ice cream?”
Kara smiled, revealing her ugly teeth again. “Sure, do you want to try our other flavors?”
“You are so clumsy, Kara,” he admonished her as he began working on the crunchy cone… which was surprisingly good too. “Always showing your teeth like a— like an addled hatchling. Or a senior with brain issues dealing with their emotions. You know what we do to those defective hatchlings and the elderly, right?”
“We have different body language,” she said, shrugging again. “I can stop smiling with my teeth if you want.”
“Yes, please. You actually seem almost normal if you don’t do those things the other pred— the other aliens do… And did you say there are other flavors of this?” he asked as he stuffed the last crumbs of the cone into his mouth.
“This ship’s machine can do like a hundred flavors. Do you want sweeter or sourer?”
“Sweeter? What’s that?”
Comments
M
He IS civilized, you naked abomination! :P
Spooker
Yes.
DeWhit
Oh nice, early chapter today. Also, out of curiosity, what gas was used on all the bun marines on datsot? I’m assuming some kind of nerve agent since he was treated with atropine
Raz_hz
Ah yes, civilising murderous aliens through the power of delicious ice cream
