The Grey observed the remains from the comfort of the central hub. The vessel was saucer shaped, like its own. No damage could be seen, but it could feel the ship's pain. The cry had persisted, faint but desperate, over the many, many light years The Grey had traveled.

The Grey had no name, nor gender. Its people had no need for such things. All were The Grey. Each was distinct. Through the Qwem, the soul link, each of The Grey was as different from the others as sight is different from sound. The Grey knew words, but rarely used them. The Qwem was enough.

Four more of The Grey joined the Qwem. They observed. They questioned. They made a plan. The damaged ship Qwemmed for help, but they had not been able to connect to it directly. Three would go to the ship. They would heal the damage. They would find the cause. Two would remain and monitor their progress. The Two would extract the Three, should the need arise.

The Three stood in the center of the ship. Light surrounded them. The beam carried them through the hull of the ship down to the grass below. They approached the downed saucer. An entrance lay open in the side of the damaged vessel. The Three entered.

The Three found no signs of life. The Grey was not surprised. If there had been more Grey on the planet, they would have Qwemmed. The dim starlight filtering through the entrance did little to illuminate the ship. The Three altered their eyesight to adjust.

The interior of the saucer was similar to The Grey's own ship. Or at least it had been. Dark stains streaked across its floor. Blood. Blood from The Grey. Foodstuffs and instruments were missing. Pieces of the ship had been torn out and carried away. Most disturbing of all, the Nodes had been pierced.

The Nodes were the soul of the ship. The source of its Qwem. The Central Node resided at ship's center. The other twelve were spaced evenly along the edges of its interior. Cutting tools had been stabbed into each of the Nodes. The Nodes could not heal, as the weapons were still lodged within them. One Node had not been penetrated as deeply as the others. This was the source of the ship's Qwem for help.

The Three removed the weapons. A quick inspection confirmed the cutting tools had belonged to The Grey. The Three waited. The Nodes healed. When the healing was complete, The Three and The Two qwemmed with the ship. They lived its memories.

En route to Homeworld. Six of the Grey on board. 19 others. The Grey had abducted them from their planet. The others were bipedal, like The Grey. Their heads were smaller, their muscles more developed. Unlike The Grey, they had fur, most notably on the tops of their heads. Their skin tones ranged from pink to brown. They were intelligent, and used tools, but they could not Qwem. They were Lesser, and that made them playthings.

The Grey often visited and took the Lesser from this planet. They would probe orifices, examine organs, or simply cut and burn the Lesser over and over again. While some knowledge was gained from these experiments, the true purpose was to inflict as much pain and humiliation as possible. The Grey loved hurting the Lesser. They reveled in the writhing, the cries, and especially the flaring of the creature's Lifeglow. Through the aura the sapients project, The Grey literally taste the pain, drink in the fear.

Most of the time, The Grey would return the Lessers to their homeworld after healing their bodies and wiping their minds. The mindwipe was imperfect, and often the Lesser would have flashes of memory return. More importantly, the mindwipe did nothing to remove the psychic trauma the experiments had inflicted on the Lesser. The Grey found this last bit of cruelty hilarious, and savored the knowledge that their subjects would struggle and suffer and not even know why.

This particular group of Lesser would not be returned. The Grey were taking them to The Homeworld. They would be playthings for the rest of their lives. The Grey would do things to them that their primitive minds could barely imagine.

The Six of The Grey were playing with one of the Lesser. A female. Three were in her chamber while Three prepared equipment for the next Lesser they would torment. They Qwemmed together so that all could enjoy her distress. One of the Three pulled too hard on the Lesser. Her torso shifted out of the restraining beam. The female grabbed one of the cutting tools on the tray next to her. She stabbed one of the Three.

All in the Qwem felt the pain. The Grey are unaccustomed to such things. They screamed together, falling away from the female. The Ship turned one of its Nodes towards her, preparing a new restraining beam. The female, bleeding, screaming, turned and stabbed at the movement.

The cutting tool pierced the Node. The Ship Qwemmed a silent scream. In its discomfort, it failed to maintain the other restraining beams. The Lesser escaped into the ship.

Damaged and afraid, the Ship sought out the nearest habitable planet. As it travelled, it watched the Lesser murder The Grey.

The Three and The Two broke Qwem with the ship. They had seen enough. The Three would return to their ship, and the downed saucer would be sent back to The Homeworld. The Grey doubted any of the Lesser were still alive, as the planet they'd crashed on was barely habitable. It would check for survivors nonetheless. If any Lesser survived, they would be taken. They would suffer for daring to harm The Grey.

As they exited, a searing pain stabbed through One of the Three. Still linked, The Grey screamed. The One of The Three looked, saw one of the Lesser behind it. The Lesser had a length of wood in its hands. The wood had a sharp stone tip. A spear. The tip had been plunged into the One's side.

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The Grey broke Qwem with The Three. It ordered its ship to extract them. As the Travel Beam carried them aloft, The Grey saw the Lesser coming up with them. They had grabbed hold of The Three.

The Grey shut down the Travel Beam. The Three dropped, Qwemming, begging for help. The Grey would give none. It would never risk its own safety to help another. It was above such things. The other of The Two Qwemmed agreement. They watched The Three fall into the waiting mass of Lesser.

The Grey considered. It was safe for the moment. Even on their homeworld, the Lesser lacked the ability to damage a saucer from the outside. It was tempted to watch The Three die. It did not dare. To focus attention was to invite Qwem, and it did not want to feel the fate of the Three.

It focused its attention on the Lessers. Strange. Only 19 of the Lesser had been on the downed saucer. There were 46 of them surrounding the downed ship, now. Their breeding cycle was not fast enough to account for that kind of population increase. Where had the others come from?

The leader of the Lessers, a female, shouted orders in its guttural language. Several Lessers with spears ran into the downed saucer, attacking the Nodes. The Grey ignored the ship's cries for help.

The Grey Qwemmed its own ship to scan the planet. The ship found 57 ships of The Grey scattered along its surface. Three of the ships were fairly close to the downed saucer. The other ships were dead, or too damaged to Qwem. The Grey suspected they had suffered the same fate as the ship it had come for, damaged by escaped Lesser who slaughtered The Grey on board.

The Lessers had survived, bred, formed communities. Scattered across the planet, likely unaware of other survivors, they endured. Anger threaded its way through The Grey. These primitives, worthless beings who could not Qwem, who could barely reach their own moon, these Lesser had colonized a world through the murder of The Grey. The very thought was offensive.

The light of the Travel Beam broke The Grey from its musings. One of The Three was still alive. It had Qwemmed the ship. The Grey panicked. It tried to shut down the beam. The One would not let it. Its desperate fear made it stronger in the Qwem then The Grey. It shut it out, broke The Grey's Qwemlink. neither it nor the Other of the Two could access the ship. The Grey's panic increased. It Qwemmed at The One, pleaded. It needed to Qwem the ship. It needed to activate defenses. The One did not hear. It gripped tight to the Qwemlink, shutting The Two out. It cared for nothing but its own escape from the Lesser.

The One passed through the hull of the saucer. As The Grey had feared, three of the Lesser clung to its body. Two males with spears and a female with a bow. Primitive weapons that might have amused The Grey in other circumstances. They were not amusing, now.

The Travel Beam set the One and its passengers gently down in the center of the saucer. The Grey could see fear and excitement in the Lifeglow of the males. The female's Lifeglow was nothing but cold, sharp focus. With a shock of recognition, The Grey knew it was the same female that had initiated the escape and slaughter on the ship it had come to find.

The Grey pressed to Qwem the ship as hard as it could. One of the spear wielders thrust downward, impaling The One of The Three. The pain broke The One's hold on the Qwemlink. The Grey pushed through, told the ship to activate Restraining Beams. It would have preferred deadlier measures, but the more powerful weapons would take precious seconds to activate, and it dared not spare the time.

The hum of the ship increased for half a second. Then the beams struck. The two males were caught, paralyzed. The female rolled out of the way. The ship readied another beam. She came up on one knee, bow pointed skyward. She loosed the arrow a fraction of the second before the Restraining Beam engulfed her.

The arrow struck the Central Node. The ship screamed through the Qwem. The Restraining Beams flickered out. The Grey froze in horrified shock.

The two males charged, spears held low. One came for The Grey, one for the Other of Two. Fear knocked the Grey out of its stupor. It raced for the wall of the saucer. It climbed as fast as it could. The male stabbed with his spear, but The Grey managed to avoid it. It climbed higher, out of the Lesser's reach.

If The Grey could just reach the Central Node, it could remove the arrow. Then the ship could reactivate its defenses. The Other of Two died on the spear of a Lesser. The other male tried to climb after The Grey, but could not. The Grey could make it. The Grey could still win.

Pain. Sharp, searing pain shot through The Grey's arm. It almost fell off the wall. A wooden shaft had pierced through its forearm. An arrow. The female had shot it. It had never felt such pain.

The Grey gritted its teeth and tried to keep climbing. It burned. The arm would not support its weight. The best The Grey could do was to cling to the wall.

It watched the female as she drew another arrow. Her Lifeglow still contained that sharp, cold focus, but now it sensed something roiling underneath it. Hatred? Rage? Murderous intent, The Grey decided. The Lesser's arrow missed by a few inches. The next one sank into its leg. The Grey fell.

The impact knocked the air out of it. The shock sent the pain of its wounds searing hotter than it had thought possible. The Grey could do nothing but lay stunned, unable even to gasp.

The female Lesser regarded it, arrow drawn. She barked orders at the males. They ran to the Nodes, stabbing each in turn with cutting tools they found. The Grey recovered enough to gasp for breath. It flopped over, crawling away from the Lesser.

If it could reach one of the Nodes before the Lesser damaged them all, it might be able to force a Qwem. It was a long shot, but it was the only hope The Grey had. Whimpering, it crawled. The Lesser watched it. Then she calmly shot an arrow into its other leg.

Screaming and writhing, the Grey tried to keep crawling. It could not. Its legs were useless. It tried to pull itself with its one good arm. The Lesser shot an arrow into it. She regarded it for a moment, then turned and put an arrow through the skull of the Grey in the center of the ship. She put another into the head of the Other of Two. Having assured herself that they were dead, she set down her bow.

The Lesser walked up to the last of The Grey. Helpless, hurting, it could do nothing but watch her approach. The deadly focus fell away from her Lifeglow. Her aura shone with something else, now. Cold fury, burning hate. Grim satisfaction. She drew a sharpened stone from her belt. She whispered to The Grey in a language it did not know. She caressed its skin with her sharp stone knife.

Fresh horror flooded The Grey. This Lesser was not going to kill it. This Lesser was going to kill it slowly. She would give it more pain. She would make it suffer as she had suffered. She would savor its screams.

The Grey could not move. Could not fight. Could not escape. It Qwemmed for help. There was no response. The ship was too hurt to Qwem. The other ships were dead or too hurt to Qwem. The other Grey were dead. The rest of its kind were too far away to hear it, or unwilling to heed its call. It was alone. Helpless. Afraid. The Lesser knew. She could not Qwem, could not see its Lifeglow, but she knew. It could see it in her Lifeglow. She knew, and she was pleased. Slowly, gently, she pressed the knife against it.

The Lesser began to cut.