Time slows down and I begin to feel and understand every millisecond of what just transpired.
The bolt, red and screeching through the air and much less than light speed but just enough to tear and bore through the skull of the Fei, the brave Fei who would stand up to…my terrorism.
Is it terrorism though? They started it!
His body-I know now that it’s a male, the gender easy to recognise by the distinctly thicker skull tail-muscle that falls back much shorter than that of Scrakna- falls to the floor before I do, before I’m set free of his psychic manipulation.
I know this because I can feel it around me, I can still feel the weightless, boundless feeling of being held up in a bubble by some unknown force.
A force that’s a product of his mental capacities.
Which means, once I start falling, a mere second after his body slaps the floor, I can confirm that I have, in fact, taken the life of another sentient, intelligent being.
As I land in a crouch on the floor and washed over by the terrified screaming of one of his colleagues, I wonder; Am I a murderer now?
Wait, of course I am. I just killed someone, I just killed a person, a sentient creature.
But, aren’t all creatures sentient? Aren’t all living beings intelligent in some way or another?
Yes, of course they are.
Then I’m a murderer, I’ve been one for years. I have snuffed out the lives of several experimental groups of mice, chimpanzee, and literal guinea pigs for my research.
But, then why doesn’t it feel this way? Why didn’t I slow down, why didn’t I stop to consider and ponder the meaning and effect of my actions then? Because I thought I’d be doing something altruistic with the results dissecting them would foster?
What qualifies a creature, a living being as a sentient? What makes their life all the more worth it that I stop and think before and after taking it?
Nothing. There’s nothing special there. We’re all murderers, directly or indirectly. Every single insect I’ve smacked and every single piece of meat I’ve chewed on. Everything that contributed to bringing nutrients into my body, in keeping me alive a second longer was once alive.
This Fei isn’t any different. As an omnivore I could feast on his still warm corpse now, or cook it in a pot and serve it on a plate and I’d still gain the same nutrients I need to stay alive.
I figure, this Fei isn’t any different from the ant I absentmindedly step on or the flies and spiders I spray away with insecticides.
And neither am I.
“Shut up or you’re next!” Quick as a whip I pull the blaster and point it at the screeching Fei. She sobs and her colleague brings her closer in for a hug, “Now move away from the controls or else you’re the next person who’s getting a laser bolt in the skull.”
Obedient, they do as I say and back away.
Satisfied, for now, I get up from my crouch and head for the controls. Immediately I notice something different.
“Hey you!” I point the blaster at the Fei, they look at one another, confused, “Either one, change the dame settings, how did you even change the language, jeez!”
They seem to understand what I’m saying because they’ve completed all my orders so far. Whether they can speak my language is a different issue though.
I suppose the Fei rightly went thorough preparing for this incursion. They’ve gotten everyone, likely everyone on their ships to understand my language but made sure not to have too many people actually capable of speaking it.
Even with an armada hanging over the planet they still express extreme caution. I’m beginning to hate them more and more.
The Fei hits some buttons, which I watch carefully and soon changes the language settings back.
Finally, I’m getting somewhere. Hunched over the controls I look for the changes they’ve made to my baby.
The power output…has somehow been cut down to more than half what I used to drill minerals out of asteroids. How did she manage that? How does she manage to tear the universe open with this meagre amount of power?
I can’t understand anything about how the power cutback works but I can understand what turned the Drill into a cosmic ice-pick.
The frequency. The frequency of the Drill normally, the Drill to mine minerals is 8.97, but she’s shifted that to something a much lower frequency; 4.74.
4.74 is a frequency so timid and mild you won’t even pick a flies wings off with the Neutrinos the Drill fires. And yet, somehow, she’s gotten it to make a wormhole, a cosmic anomaly out of seemingly nothing.
She doesn’t give herself enough credit. This is pure genius, I’ll need days, months to figure this out.
Fortunately, I’m not here to figure it out. Even now, I can hear bootstraps headed this way. They must have heard the damn screaming,
Pushing the power over the limit and the frequency at a much higher number to make sure the Drill feels the strain, I effectively sabotage the Drill and their wormhole.
Firing three shots at the controls, it’s finished. I can hear it humming now, groaning and moaning in protests.
I’m sorry baby.
The irritating clicking of their native tongue gets much louder as their troops approach. I know I’m cornered but, I’m not ready to go down just yet.
Blaster trained, I grab one of the two remaining white coats and get back into the position I had Scrakna in; blaster to the head, arm locked around neck and body behind my unfortunate victim.
Within a moment, my view is full of Fei troopers. They’re all clicking and clacking about themselves, some yelling and huffing butchered words of my language at me.
“Grund! Gruuunnd!”
Like screaming any louder will help me understand what you’re saying.
“If you don’t let me go, I’ll blow her brains out!” I scream, pressing the gun to her head for clearer emphasis.
She begins to sob now…if you can call her tearless choking and whining a sob. How do they see without eyes?
I put the wonder aside as the troopers are considering my words. The one that looks to be in charge steps forward after having some words clicked at him.
Dashing all my expectations of freedom the tall, intimidating Fei takes aim and fires straight through the head of the Fei in my arms.
The laser bolt passed narrowly by that it singed a bit of my hair and skin and before I have time to process letting go of the newest Fei corpse in the room, I’m tackled to the ground and basically sat on with restraints.
With this finale, I’m at peace.
The Drill will explode any moment from now and the troopers are moving me out after just having killed one of their own. They must have realized they hadn’t a moment to waste negotiating the life of their comrade while the entire facility was about to be wracked with yet another explosion.
As they carried me like a piece of luggage out of the control room, I can’t help wishing they waste a bit more time; give the Drill some extra seconds to prime up just close enough that the explosion takes us regardless of out attempts at escape.
Perhaps there’s still a chance for me to be enveloped in a white of destruction though, I don’t know what the combination of a ridiculous frequency and an outrageous amount of power would result in.
But likely, and hopefully, something powerful enough to swallow me whole.
However, just before I go any further in my listlessness, chaos erupts once more.
I’m callously dropped on the floor as my captors turn to react to a quick footed, mechanically twirling and spinning killing machine that launches itself from Fei to Fei to wall to Fei and then another Fei.
Snapping necks, ripping out entire spinal cords and pulling arms out, Four-Seven is here to rescue me in a bath of blood, gore and perhaps even the excrement of his victims.
“Four-Seven!” I yell as I wiggling about on the stained floor.
“I am her to retrieve you, Miss.” He responds emotionlessly as he rams a protruding blade through one of the Fei.
The unfortunate sods keep firing their weapons, much to their credit they get a few pings on Four-Seven, but his determination isn’t to be looked down upon.
Quickly, he switches weapons. His arm expands and morphs, the insides clicking into place as it prepares to take on a dangerous form and in mere moments, Four-Seven’s arm is transformed into a much-feared ion-cannon.
The Fei are too late to react and with a single firing of the weapon of doom their bodies are turned to sludge, their cells rapidly denatured and irradiated. A cruel death to come by.
Only a scant few remain now and they’re wavering, it’s obvious, it’s clear to see. And that’s their downfall.
