The Alien Warrior King's Accountant - Loki Renard Page 0,25

the furious hunger of the one in the bulkhead below.

The alien intruder seems to be particularly aggressive. I thought I might feel sorry for him, but then it occurs to me that I probably shouldn't feel sorry for a creature capable of eating through the hull of a ship like this. It’s dangerous, in an entirely different way from the way Tyrant is dangerous. This is just hunger incarnate, a mouthpiece attached to a barrage of other pieces designed to feed the mouth.

“There are no humans here,” Tyrant declares. “You must have gotten a false positive from when we travelled near their system. Their stench travels thousands of miles into space.”

“Humannnnnnnsss…” the creature repeats again, ignoring Tyrant’s lie.

Diplomacy doesn’t work on those who simply repeat their demands over and over again.

“I will give you one chance to vacate this ship, before I destroy you,” Tyrant declares, abandoning his attempt at conversation.

I am worried for him. Tyrant is huge, but this creature’s body is longer and stranger than his, and if I know anything about insects, it is that they have powerful exoskeletons which repel attackers.

The Mantid does not take Tyrant up on his offer. Instead, it attacks him with a furious roar. But Tyrant is not easy prey. He fights back, his iridescence becoming a beautiful glow which becomes brighter and brighter, ironically trapping the Mantid in his luminescent presence. It is blinded by his light, batting and biting, and screeching with a sound like a furious dinosaur.

I watch, appalled, but unable to look away as Tyrant wraps his massive arms around a weak point — the creature’s neck. Its biting mouthparts slash and snap together, some kind of nasty viscous dew dripping from their serrated edges.

But the battle is over as Tyrant hauls and twists with mighty effort, pulling the creature’s head from its body, a gory trophy left in his arms as the body of the beast reacts by a spasmodic batting of its wings, uncontrollable and so loud it drowns out every other sound in the cosmos. Without a head to direct it, it tumbles about in the bulkhead, bashing into the walls with a loud clanging sound which makes my own head ring in sympathy.

Then, it is gone, flashing out through the hole it chewed through the hull and spiraling into the depths of space.

Tyrant hauls the head over to the same hole and throws it out. The last I see of the creature is its oversized eyes looking at me with pinpoint fury one last time.

“Get repair crews on this hole,” he announces to nobody and everybody all at once. “And start deploying swarm repellent from the nacelles.”

I want to be closer to Tyrant. I want to thank him for saving me. I want…

“Oh FUCK!”

The floor opens up beneath me and I find myself falling through it. It’s a good ten feet down, which is several more feet than I really wanted to find myself tumbling into a gooey, bloody scene of battle.

“Ooff!”

Tyrant catches me in his arms, responding to my screams with more gallant rescue.

“Don’t worry,” he says, far too brightly for a creature covered in the guts of another creature. “You’re perfectly safe.”

But I’m not.

I didn’t know creatures like that existed, animals capable of breaking through the hull of a warship with their mouths. It is terribly frightening to think that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of animals of various kinds who want to destroy me.

What if Tyrant isn’t there to save me the next time something comes for me? All of a sudden, I feel the vastness of creation extending out all around me. I am a tiny point in the middle of it, and out around me at various distances and depths are monsters beyond my imagination.

“Sire! The human has to stop making holes in the ship!” Terrible has followed me down through it. Unlike the first time I destroyed the ship, King Tyrant doesn’t seem to mind the general destruction. I guess there’s already so much damage, what does one extra little hole matter?

I have to get back to work, immerse myself in the numbers, pretend that I am safe. When I’m working, I don’t think about the vastness of a hostile universe. I don't think about anything besides the numbers.

“Can you take me back to my office, please? I’d like to get some work done.”

Finally, I’ve said something Terrible approves of.

“Yes, sire, let me return the human to her working quarters.”

“Very well.