Date Point: 3Y 08M 3W AV
Beam of Hope colony
Mugyiu just stood in the middle of the chaos, unable to react but absorbing it all. After the initial seconds of shock, the heterogeneous audience started its terrified reaction to the venue’s main attraction:
The majority of the Vzk’tk threw themselves on the floor in fear, making almost equine-like noises of alarm, while some of them just ran away.
The few guvnurags attending the event panicked and ran together at the same time, red and black glow glimmering on their sides. One of them hit her head on the exit’s doorframe, collapsing to the ground. The other species had a less extreme, more articulated reaction, but fear was the general constant.
“He’s crazy, the human is completely mad!” Babbled one of the Rrrrtktktkp’chs.
Mugyiu was the only Gaoian in the whole town, and he was an atypical one at that. He’d always disliked his homeworld’s obsession with mating and reproduction, and having to conform to a clan and worship the female one, wasn’t something that interested him very much. Even being clanless was in a certain way like being part of a clan, and he would have none of that.
Not that he didn’t have all those instincts, but they certainly were reduced compared to your typical Gaoian.
That’s the reason that made him look upon the stars to find his own way, a life that was more meaningful than the constrains of biology.
He came to Beam of Hope three Gaoian cycles ago, and he got to make a living doing maintenance work on the sanitation system of the facility. He liked his life quite a bit, specially the opportunities of learning from other cultures and forms of life, even more so from individuals that just for being in this place, were guaranteed to not be stereotypical members of their respective species.
And boy he was learning right know.
His reaction was more like being mesmerized than anything else.
People running and screaming. The human impassive, with his arms extended in the air and his eyes closed, like some kind of weird megalomaniac… (He had to concede it to the Rrrrtktktkp’ch, that man must be completely mad);
And then the Hunter.
It was definitely a big one -Mugyiu had seen archive footage of Hunters and hologram representations, and this one seemed to take a whole head of advantage in height compared to those-. It was heavily modified, with lots of metallic prosthetics crudely attached to its body. Mugyiu noticed he must have looked even more menacing before, judging for the two amputated artificial forearms, and the vestiges of probably shoulder-mounted weaponry that was also violently removed.
Little was known in the galaxy about Hunter body language, and certainly his translator wasn’t conveying anything of note, but Mugyiu could almost feel the hate reflecting in its face. True, blind hate… And something more, there was something in the way it stood, the low clicking sounds that came from its head. Mugyiu couldn’t be sure, but it really seemed like despite being a nightmare come true, this being was resigned, powerless.
To Mugyiu, The Merchant appeared to came out from a deep daydream, and looked upon the audience, a sense of alarm arriving to his face.
“Wait! People please, calm down! We are all perfectly safe right now!” he shouted atop of his lungs with all the authority he could muster.
The Guvnurag that had fell to the floor stood up and looked at the human, appearing to come back to her senses.
“This is madness! Don’t you realize the extreme danger you are imposing to this community by bringing this monstrosity here? And undeclared of all things! We’ve being coexisting with a Hunter for what, 20 moon rotations?”
The human displayed on his face what the translators identified as mild amusement.
“22 rotations. And this is a Hunter Alpha, my esteemed friend.”
“A Hunter Alpha?? And don’t you think they will be looking for it and its captor? They could be [hours] from here for all we know!”
“Madness.” repeated the Rrrrtktktkp’ch from before.
The human dismissed the alarmist thoughts with his hand, more amused than before.
“Nonsense. They don’t know it’s here, or even alive! I’ve captured it months ago, and even if they were looking for it, they would never look in this forgotten star system. Isn’t that right, Misha?”
“Who’s Misha?!” Mugyiu finally dare to speak.
“The Hunter, I’ve name it. It likes it!”
Mugyiu didn’t respond, he limited himself to making the Gaoian equivalent of a shrug, with his eyes lost on the distance.
“We need to let governor Zrkntk know of this at once! Although if we are going to follow the issue by the book, this asks for a meeting with a Dominion representative.” Said the female Guvnurag.
“Don’t be silly, Rodrugvagndru, if word of this madness gets outside the town, we will have the swarm of swarms on our doorstep in an instant! This has to be solved internally!”
More voices started to rise in the crowd, until the arena became a cacophony of chaotic vocalizations.
The human covered up the cage again with the red fabric, and with a great shout that overcame everyone else’s, finished that day’s gig:
“Show’s over, my friends! You can come back tomorrow if you like, same hour, same place! Tell your friends and acquaintances! Misha and I will be looking forward to see all of you!”
There were some mild protests from the audience, but they were quickly cut short by the suddenly intense gaze of the human.
With the Hunter no longer on sight, the crowd started to leave in an orderly manner.
“The governor will hear of this.” Threatened the Guvnurag.
“Well, you don’t have this kind of entertainment back on Gao, that’s for sure.” Mugyiu thought to himself while leaving the cargo bay.
Date Point: 3Y 06M 1W AV
Unnamed Vzk’tk cargo freighter
The Alpha of The Bloodlusted Brood had long since abandoned any sense of pride and hope of returning to its former glory.
It all started when its brood’s feast on a fairly big ship of the blue stick-legs prey was cut short by this unworthy human. Then they all began to die, hunted one by one. When even the Beta broadcasted its final undignified thoughts on the brood’s cyber network, the Alpha decided to step in and end this nonsense.
The Alpha played it smart, and in the final showdown it almost got the wretched human with a nerve-jam. But he shook it away with a lucky flip of his weapon, and then threw himself on the Alpha and violently removed the shoulder-mounted grenade launcher. It if weren’t for its powerful cybernetic enhancements, Alpha of The Bloodlusted Brood wouldn’t have survived the shock of its artificial limbs being torn apart by the berserking human. Instead it only lost consciousness.
It awoke inside one of the prey ship’s cargo bays, locked up with forcefields, a provision of the disgusting rounded supplements the prey passed for substenance at its side.
The wretched human was just outside of the forcefield, showing all the teeth in his mouth.
“wakie wakie, comrade! It’s time for your morning jog! Nah, just kidding. You need to recover from yesterday. That was a hell of a night, wasn’t it? Fun too. Except for the people you all ate, that wasn’t funny at all. But you know what, that’s in the past. We can look forward to a very lucrative partnership, you and i.
Oh, I almost forgot, you need a name! You Hunters don’t use proper names, don’t you? Tell me your name if that’s not the case.
Nothing? Ok, I’m naming you Misha. That was my cousin’s name, he was a good kid. You’re welcome!”
The Alpha never regretted anything more than having a translator implanted inside its head at the moment. It thought of it as an strategical advantage during The Hunt, but now it was proving to be just another instrument of torture for the benefit of its captor.
Sleep cycles came and went, and the Alpha had to resort to eat the disgusting prey-spheres in order to stay alive.
What the hideous human didn’t know, was that as was sometimes the case with an Alpha, it had built-in inside its body a long range transmitter that could eventually reach the greater Hunter Network. It would take some time, but the message would eventually get through.
It certainly wasn’t going to convey the full nature of its predicament, however. Just an ambiguous distress call would suffice.
+<distress; statement> This is the Alpha of The Bloodlusted Brood. Our brood transport was damaged during a hunt. I am the only survivor, requesting assistance. <Information> Conveying current coordinates and transponder signal for further communication. Meat to the maw! .+
It knew that the chances of rescue were slim, but it needed to try. Anything but keep tolerating the presence of the wretched human.
After quite a few sleep cycles of profoundly humiliating ‘conversations’ with the human, the reply from the homeworld finally came:
+<Amusement; sneer> No Alpha that praises itself and its brood gets stranded during a Hunt. Come back by your own means, or don’t come back at all.+
It was unfortunate, but expected. When the Alpha received the communication, the human was trying to teach it a ‘trick’ that consisted on jumping through some kind of ring.
“Come on Misha, I know you can! Imagine the shouts of praise from the audience!”
It was too much. The Alpha of the Bloodlusted Brood held himself tightly to the cargo bay’s floor plating, and with a powerful balancing movement, hit the floor with it’s head, trying to end it all. The blow almost did the trick, but it wasn’t enough.
It woke up inside a metal cage, with all its limbs chained to the steel bars.
The human was sitting outside the cage, showing his teeth in a contortion that the Alpha had come to recognize as deep amusement.
“Misha! You are awake! I though I’ve almost lost you! You are lucky this ship has a nanofactory, or I wouldn’t be able to fabricate this nice cage for you! I know, you are welcome.”
The Alpha did something it never thought it would: It screamed.
Date Point: 3Y 08M 3W AV
Beam of Hope colony
The Alpha woke up inside the cage, like it had been doing countless times already. But something was off. There was a material covering the cage, red like the blood of the most precious prey.
After some time, it heard the despised voice of the human.
“Misha, today is our big day! What am I saying? your big day! You will meet your audience! It’s a shame that you didn’t want to learn any cool tricks, but it’s ok really. Just your presence will be enough for the best entertainment in the galaxy! You look like shit, though. Do I have to force-feed you again? Oh, here they come!
It began to feel the unmistakable sounds and scents of the prey. Its maw became instantly watered by the memories of previous Hunts, of former glory. What he wouldn’t give for a bite of precious, trembling meat!
More and more prey seemed to be entering the cargo bay, until the human began speaking his usual nonsense.
The Alpha wasn’t truly listening -It was extremely tired of the constant rambling of its captor-. All it could think about was of the delicious prey surrounding it.
Thus, it came as a surprise when the red covering was removed from the cage, and the Alpha was presented with the view of more than one-hundred of the prey. Stick-legs, Egg-heads, Herd-prey. It was a feast to all its eyes. And they were fearing him, too. One of the Herd-prey was so desperate to run, that it hit the ceiling and fell. Others were following suit.
But the amusement was short-lived. The human shouted, and the prey began to calm down. They were still affraid, but they were more collected and discussing what to do with the Alpha. The Prey. Were. Discussing. What. To do. With a Hunter Alpha.
There was no other way. It already unsuccessfully tried escaping through death -a solution destined to mere meat-slaves- and contacting the greater brood didn’t help either. But this was something that transcended the Alpha as an individual. Somewhere in the galaxy, no matter how remote a place, a Hunter Alpha was chained, caged, and reduced to a mere attraction for the amusement of the prey. Of the prey!
It prepared its implant for the linkup.
+<Deepest of shames; confession> This is the Alpha of the Bloodlusted Brood. We were attacked by a single human. He slayed all of us, except for me.
He put me in a cage and is displaying me for the enjoyment of the prey. This has to end. Conveying current coordinates.+
The reply came a few sleep cycles later, swift and concise:
+<Revulsion; information> We will destroy and consume the prey. No word of this will ever reach the rest of them. You are correct in one thing, Alpha: This has to end. <Disgust> You are a DISGRACE! .+