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“No, look. Something’s wrong with him. See?”
There was some debate over his current mobility before someone smacked him with a metal stick to be sure. He grunted in pain but his body remained motionless.
“Shit. He really can’t move, can he?”
The next jab was for his stomach. His body was desperate to double over. It was an extraordinary kind of suffering—being vulnerable all over, sensitive to every tiny particle of dust, helpless to stop them from hurting him.
Should have molted earlier.
Shouldn’t have locked Lucca in a cell. Now… he didn’t know what would happen to her.
Should’s and shouldn’t-haves plagued him.
“What d’you suppose happened to him? The rocks on him look all… flaky.”
“Who knows, man, I’ll take what I can get. Get a load of this ship.”
“You don’t think he’s diseased…?” The voice trailed off in speculation and an uncomfortable silence descended over the humans.
“Call Collins.”
Commotion followed those words. Then he was moved upstairs. They dragged him by the net—ten humans to one Ternetzi. Metal lines dug painfully into his shell. He was dumped on the floor before a screen while boots scuffled away, but a few humans kept their little guns trained on him.
The voice of nightmares resonated through the cabin. Polite and skin-crawling. “Well well, would you look at that?”
“He’s paralyzed, Commander.”
Terry Collins was Commander now? Caligher would offer him a backhanded congratulations if he had the strength to form words.
“Do you realize who this is?” Collins said.
“An alien, sir?”
“Well to Mister Caligher, I imagine we’re the aliens,” Collins said with a high-and-mighty air that Caligher found nauseating.
The group discussed him like a creature of interest. All the while he heard the dark little hints of what the new commander had in store for him.
He’d be ripping his body apart for secrets soon enough. He wanted to drain his spark and put it in his own veins. Caligher’s only option was to wait. Wait for his molting to complete.
Once he was on the mothership, he would do whatever it took to get into the systems, cripple whatever he could until his hands were free to murder every human in sight. Especially Collins. He would derive sick, sweet pleasure out of murdering Terry Collins.
Caligher waited.
And waited.
And waited…
And started losing consciousness.
“We keep him off the Aerinus for now…”
Collins’s words echoed like memories as his awareness distorted. Sleep closed in.
“And keep him in this state. We don’t need another explosion.”
Horror invaded his mind, far away. Collins wouldn’t let him on the ship—and why should the humans make it so easy? Collins knew Caligher’s reputation. Of course, he wouldn’t let him on their prized mothership to put it to the test.
As his consciousness whittled away, he wondered about Lucca.
