Chapter 14
Captain Irisek met the hunter in the cargo bay after his shuttle docked with their warship. He didn’t know what to expect as he waited for the strangely organic vessel to expel its passenger, but he wasn’t the only one to recoil when the hunter sent by the oprimo crawled out of the slit that opened in the side of the shuttle, and then proceeded down the tentacle-like ropes that extended from the pulsing side of the ship to the smooth floor of the cargo hold.
The guards behind Irisek struggled not to show their reaction to the newcomer, though it must have been difficult. Irisek found it difficult. He’d spent a long deployment on a Menops-occupied colony, fighting the creatures in a fruitless endeavor to free the colony. The Iriduans could slaughter a thousand Menops soldiers and not even make a dent in their occupation of the colony, since the queen could replace them very quickly, and do so indefinitely. At the same time, she’d send the zombie-like slaves who’d once been the residents of the colony against the Iriduan military, who had to mercilessly mow down those poor shells animated by a sentient fungal growth that had allied itself with the Menops.
Given how much the Iriduans hated the Menops, Irisek was shocked to see that the first emperor had sent one of them to track down Nahash. Now, the creature had boarded their ship, which meant a queenship could soon be on the way to engage them in battle—a battle they might not win, given the unique qualities of the queenship.
Unable to comprehend the madness of the first emperor, Irisek motioned to his guards, who lifted their stun rifles to their shoulders, drawing a bead on the hunter, their fingers steady on their triggers as they awaited his command.
The hunter clicked its mandibles together as its ovoid head shifted from side to side, allowing its bulbous black eyes to fix on each soldier facing it. It stood on four deceptively slender legs that supported a segmented body with a large abdomen. Above a narrow waist, its heavily armored torso looked more Iriduan in shape—no doubt because the Menops had integrated Iriduan DNA into their fluid genetic code. Menops underwent multiple metamorphoses in their lifetimes, and their morphing genetic code allowed them to alter their DNA to best accommodate whatever world they colonized, making them one of the most dangerous species in the galaxy despite the fact that most considered them to be relatively primitive compared to other sentient species.
The hunter didn’t lift its own rifle in response to the threat implied by Irisek’s soldiers. Instead, it kept the weapon pointed at the floor, which reflected its image. During their tense standoff, it tilted its head from one side to the other, studying the cargo-hold with blank eyes Irisek had no hope of being able to read. The fact that it wore armor and carried a weapon implied an individual sentience, but he’d been told mixed stories about the autonomy of Menops drones. Scientists theorized that they apparently belonged to a collective consciousness that linked them to their queen in some way unknown to any other species in the Cosmic Syndicate.
After a long moment of silence while they faced off against one of their worst enemies, Irisek lifted his hand to signal his men. As one, they lowered their weapons, though they remained alert, prepared for any sign the hunter would attack.
“I wasn’t expecting a Menops drone on my ship,” Irisek said, putting all his disgust and hatred for the creature into his tone.
Rapid movement of its mandibles preceded a series of chittering and clicking sounds that Irisek’s embedded translator formed into words he could understand. “I’m no drone. I’m an unmated male—a wanderer.”
That revelation surprised Irisek. He’d heard about the rarity of unmated Menops males. There didn’t need to be many of them, since it only took one of them to inseminate a queen for her entire lifecycle—after which, she could produce drones indefinitely. Those males then either integrated into the colony or died off after they finished their singular purpose in life. Irisek suspected the latter was the likely fate for the majority of the Menops males.
“Shouldn’t you be out there looking for a queen?” he asked, wondering how much he could trust of what this creature said.
The Menops tilted his head sideways, his large, serrated mandibles spreading open to reveal the slit of his vertical mouth. “Shouldn’t you be out there searching for a queen?”
Irisek blinked as his translator let him know the hunter had repeated his own words back to him. He wondered if it mocked him. “I’m not going to mate. I prefer my freedom.”
The Menops made a trilling sound that actually translated as a chuckle. The fact that his translator could detect amusement from the creature surprised Irisek.
“Exactly,” the Menops said.
He felt a sudden and bizarre sense of kinship with the hideous creature, realizing they shared at least one thing in common—the desire to avoid being enslaved by a female. “What’s your name, hunter?”
More trilling sounds spoke of the Menop’s amusement. “That name is as good as any. Hunter. I prefer it.”
Irisek eyed the creature, and then studied his shuttle more closely, shuddering at the sight of the pulsing organic hull as he wondered how it survived like that in the freezing vacuum of space.
“Are you certain you can track Nahash?” He jerked his chin towards the shuttle with the unspoken question of whether it would hold up under the journey.
Hunter took a few steps forward on his spindly legs, his clawed feet clicking on the floor with each step. “I can track him anywhere in the galaxy.” He tapped his armored chest with the three fingers on his hand. “I can feel him. He won’t escape me.”
Irisek wondered how such a thing was possible, given the vastness of the galaxy and the distance Nahash could have already traveled.
“What if he doesn’t want to return?” He hoped Nahash could be convinced to think rationally, but the affliction twisted a male’s mind—made them forget everything that had once been important to them.
Mandibles twitched rapidly before Hunter answered. “Then we force him, in a way he can’t refuse.”
It was Irisek’s turn to chuckle, shaking his head. “I’ve fought your kind before. No lone Menops is going to be able to force Nahash to do anything. You have no idea what you’re up against.” He waved a hand towards the weapon Hunter held. “That weapon won’t even work for you against him. He’ll shut it down before you can even aim it.”
Hunter’s glassy black eyes stared at him fixedly. “You know little about our species—even less about unmated males—but that is irrelevant. I don’t need to directly engage Nahash to gain his obedience. Capture of the female should be sufficient.”