Chapter 21 #2
But if we did, these hyena aliens would continue to hunt, kill, and eat sentient beings.
Eun would fight to protect me, but right now, protecting me was better served by not fighting and finding a ship. I didn't know the person operating the MECH suit at all, other than the fact that they would step in to help a human in need. Would it help if there were more humans in need?
"They know where other humans are," I said to the MECH, grasping at straws. Maybe it would deal with the aliens if it knew other humans were in danger. "They bought me from a human woman, they said."
"What did she look like?" the MECH demanded, its voice booming with imminent threat. It took a clunking step towards the group, and the hyena aliens all tensed, focused on it, but they didn't respond. They couldn't understand it. "When did they buy you?"
None of them had any form of translators, and no one on this planet spoke any language but the dominant one, so they couldn't understand the mech at all.
"My friend wants to know what the woman you bought me from looked like and when the sale took place," I said.
"Your friend?" Eun asked. "You can understand it?"
"It speaks my language," I said to him. "It's from my planet."
"Taller than this one," said the hyena spokesperson, brightening up as he gestured at me. "Darker hue, thicker mane. Traded for laboratory supplies and food."
Judging by his sudden eagerness, he must have thought that the MECH's questions acknowledged his ownership over me.
"What was her name?" the MECH demanded.
"It wants to know her name," I translated.
"Sounded like lettuce," said the hyena alien. "Stupid name."
The word in their language for the leafy green plant he was talking about sounded like Angelica to my ears.
"Evangelia?" the MECH said, catching the sound of the word.
"This one is ours," the hyena pointed at me again. "Her kind is a delicacy. We ate the other two before we realized how much her meat would sell for. Do you have more to sell? We'll buy all of them."
"Fuckers," the MECH spat out. "Is there any way we can get these guys arrested? I don't want to leave them running around."
"Just tell us what the price is," the hyena alien demanded. "If you keep translating for us so we can get more of your kind, we won’t eat you, we promise."
Several of the other hyenas let out a chuckle.
"You won't eat her regardless," Eun snarled.
"It has other humans it can sell you, but wants to see your ship first," I said to the hyenas. "It wants to go on board and look at what you have to trade."
"Why would you say that?" the MECH asked me.
"They might have navigational data or records or something to explain where they got the other humans from," I said in English. "Plus, we can't kill them here, where people can find them. We should do it on their ship."
"You want to kill them?" the MECH asked.
"They eat people," I said.
The MECH regarded me for a moment.
"What is it saying?" the hyena demanded.
"It says the humans it has are fresh and very valuable; it wants to make sure you can pay for them," I said.
"I'd rather turn them over to the authorities," the MECH said. "Killing them will just kill the trail to their superiors."
"They won't serve time," I told it in English. "You won't have to do anything. Eun can do it. There won't be anything or anyone to stop them if we don't get rid of them."
"You will come too," the hyena said. "To translate."
"As long as your kind won't ever bother me again," I said.
"Agreed," the hyenas all chuckled again, and they headed back down the alley.
Eun hovered next to me as we followed them, the MECH clunking beside us.
"I don't like this," Eun said, his voice low.
"We got this, remember?" I told him as I laced my fingers with him. I gave his hand a squeeze to emphasize my words. "Let's go see inside their ship."
I couldn't tell him that my grand plan was to get on board and have him and the MECH turn everyone into paste so that we could commandeer their ship, because the hyena aliens could understand everything I said to him, but by the slight widening of his eyes and the tensing of his jaw, he took some meaning from my words.
My heart was pounding, fear and excitement making everything a little bit sharper. I needed to calm down.
I focused on the MECH, craning my neck to look up at it, but I was used to looking up at people by this point.
"Do you have a ship?" I asked, dialing my backup plan in case murder and piracy didn't work out well.
"Are you leaving the system? Can we catch a ride with you back to Earth?
We need to get off this planet, right now.
We can pay upfront in full, or work for passage, whatever you need.
Please, you're the first person I've met who even knows the name of my planet. "
"Sure," the MECH said. "But I need to discuss it with my partner."
"What is it saying?" one of the hyena aliens asked.
"I asked it if it could give us a ride," I said. "We're looking for passage off this planet."
"We'll provide you passage," said the hyena with a toothy grin and a chuckle. "To pay you for translating."
I didn't bother responding to that.
We clunked up the ramp onto the hyena alien's ship.
It stank like rotten meat and piss. We had walked up the ramp straight into a large cargo hold, with stacks and stacks of boxes lined up.
There were more on the landing at the bottom of the ship.
The hyena alien walked over to one of the boxes and lifted off its lid.
A cold plume of visible air hissed out. Inside were piles of individually wrapped chunks of meat.
"We have selections from every species you can think of," the hyena leader said to the MECH as it walked deeper into the hold, opening several more boxes.
Eun's shoulders were tight, his hair lashing out all around him, but neither he nor the Mech had attacked.
"This isn't a trade, this is a trap," I said. "My friend here isn't interested in buying what it can just take."
"Leija, if the robot wants to steal from them, we should stay out of its way," Eun said. "This isn't our fight. You could get hurt."
"We can just hold them here and call the cops," the MECH said, even as it lifted its guns, pointing them at the hyenas.
I knew I was on the dark side on this one.
This wasn't a moment where Eun was triggered by bloodlust, fighting for me because of the rage of his addiction and desire.
This MECH thought that the rule of law would win here, that killing the hyena aliens in cold blood, just because they said they liked eating humans, was too much.
I was trying to make two people do the dirty work for me, to rid the world of a small patch of evil.
I shouldn't try to force others to do what I wouldn't do myself.
I picked up one of the cargo box lids. It was heavy, made out of metal, but I could heft it.
What I was going to do was insane and unfair.
I couldn't fight these aliens on my own.
But I knew Eun would protect me.
A thread of guilt snaked through me, but it was only a small thread, and it couldn't stand up against the wave of hatred and disgust I felt when I looked at the hyena aliens, when I thought about the corpses hanging from hooks, about the other woman who had woken up cold and shivering, coughing goo from their lungs only to have their bodies be torn apart and devoured.
I couldn't let these hyenas walk away.
There was a numbness in my heart, built out of fear and suffering, out of the terror that I would never be able to get home and would be stranded here on this planet, unable to fully fend for myself, always dependent on the whims of those around me.
In that numbness, the part of me that would do anything to survive had flourished, grown strong and steady, until it didn't matter what my words and actions could do to those around me.
All that mattered was I needed a ship, and these hyenas needed to die.
"Eun," I said. "I am carrying our child."
I didn't know if it was true or not, but I said it anyway, because I knew that the sharp contrast of his shock would be like a blow to his mind, stunning the part of him that didn't want to be that feral beast dripping in blood. He would protect me, but I didn't need him to protect me.
I needed him to kill for me.
The hyena laughed as I swung the crate lid at him, his arms already outstretched to grab it and snatch it away. He was delighted to be attacked by someone so weak, and as his hands reached for me, I knew all he could think about was how soon he could taste my soft flesh.
His delight turned to horror as Eun's tail burst through his chest, lifting him up in the air.
Blood splattered my face.
It dripped down my skin, coating the edges of my dress with its heat, and I licked the edges of my lips, tasting it, a warmth filling me.
I smiled.