It was quiet. No one spoke, and more noteworthy, no sounds were heard from the hallway. Princess Silgvani stood at the side in the lower segment of the bridge a point chosen because from here, she had no clear line of sight to the door, and therefore, whoever would come in had no clear line of fire to her. Her guards stood in the upper segment, all guns pointed at the door to make sure whoever broke through wouldn't even be able to do so much as take a glimpse at her.

Once they realized they were under attack, Captain Iyariy had personally led the charge toward the breach point to meet their assailants, only leaving behind the eight members of the princess's elite guard. The problem was that the Star Treader, while luxurious, wasn't all that big, comparatively speaking. When the soldiers had made contact with the enemy, the sounds of their battle had been audible on the bridge. And now, they no longer were. That combined with the lack of an all-clear signal didn't exactly leave a lot of room for imagination. As a person, she wanted to tell herself that their side won and that they just went quiet while looking for any other foes they had missed. But as a leader, she unfortunately had to be realistic.

Was this all just bad luck? Sure, leaving the secure routes was risky, but it was still SPACE. What were the odds that at the exact same moment, some hostile vessel was also in the area following the strange signal?

A hissing noise told her that the door was in the process of getting cut open, and she could see her guards readying themselves. A short while later the door hit the ground, and at the same moment energy blasts were fired into the opening. Kinetic projectiles came flying in return, killing three of them, each in a single hit. The remaining five jumped down to the lower level for cover, causing Silgvani to lose sight of three of them who were now on the other side of the elevated part. Of the two on her side, one had barely gotten up when a figure landed on him and threw him to the ground. His colleague reacted quickly and managed to hit one shot at the figure before its much larger gun hit her square in the chest, the combat armor not able to stop the kinetic weapon at point-blank range. The figure then quickly aimed down and finished off the guard it was standing on before turning towards the princess, affirming Silgvani's worst assumptions: Kiroscha.

As she saw the large gun pointed at her, she was sure this was the end. The Kiroscha never left survivors. And yet, they didn't fire.

Another Kiroscha appeared on the upper section, looked at her, then said something to the other one in their language. The insectoid nodded and gestured Silgvani to go up the stairs. What was going on? Why didn't they just kill her?

Reaching the upper level, she saw the other Kiroscha - the leader, she would guess by his demeanor - take a set of cuffs from one of the dead guards and toss it towards her, and she didn't need to speak their language to understand what he wanted from her. Even though she didn't understand why they wanted that.

With all four hands cuffed behind her back, she saw the supposed subordinate open his bag and - to her even greater surprise - pulled out a handful of translators, quickly looked through the collection, then picked one and gave it to the leader who promptly put it on.

"You are...," he began, the translator not able to mask the clicking sounds his mandibles made when he spoke, "the first princess of the Vanaery, right? You fit the description, not to mention the green cape."

Silgvani had no idea what baffled her more. The fact that a Kiroscha, the species known to always shoot first and to be completely deaf to diplomacy, knew enough about them to not only know, but recognize her, or the fact that he carried a set of translators, at least one of which set to the Vanaery language.

"You know, looking back at my life, I'd probably consider myself pretty lucky. But this kind of luck is ridiculous, even by my standards", the supposed squad leader of the Kiroscha said mockingly as he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her to her knees.

"When we picked up that nonsensical signal, I would have placed my bet on some malfunctioning satellite or something like that. But certainly not a royal vessel of the Vanaery. For a race infamous for being holed up cowards you are pretty far out."

Why was he so talkative? This went against any report she had ever heard about them. Did he really take that much pleasure in taunting her? He had even put his weapon on the ground when he'd put on the translator and was now starting to walk up and down in front of her. Not that he couldn't afford it. His companion was still armed in case somebody came in, and everyone else on the bridge was already dead. Out of all the races, they HAD to run into the Kiroscha widely regarded as the most fearsome warriors out there.

Their exoskeleton - unlike the soft-shelled Vanaery - was a hard chitin shell that allowed them to take multiple hits from conventional hand-held weapons before going down, while their strength allowed them to carry heavy cannons that made short work of normal battle armor. What had just happened on the bridge could attest to their fighting prowess. With just the two of them, they had taken out all of her guards, and the rest of the squad was probably searching through the ship right now, finishing off the rest. But if they spared her... Maybe there was hope that the servants who didn't fight back might survive. In fact, he had just said he was "lucky" to have found her, so maybe...

"Let's cut to the chase," she spoke up. "I'm the one you want, so stop wasting everyone's time. Just take me with you already so you can get your promotion, and my people can return home. They are neither a threat nor of any worth to you, so let them go!"

The Kiroscha stopped walking up and down.

"No worth? I think you are selling your people short there. Sure, they are not... well, you, but just letting them go for free sounds like a bad trade."

He bent down to her.

"But you are giving me an idea, so maybe we can make an arrangement. You see, we both know that this was no navigation error. You had picked up that signal as well, and I'm getting the feeling that it was not just a satellite, was it? Why don't you enlighten me? Maybe it'll make me feel generous! Come on, what are you hiding?"

Silgvani grit her teeth. So this was the choice she had to make? Sell out her servants, or sell out the alien she had just rescued? Both choices were horrible!

No, wait! We still have the alien's escape pod. Even empty, it contains foreign technology and is proof of an unknown species! It should have plenty of worth even on its own! Would they believe me if I claimed it was empty when we found it? Well, worth a try!

"She is hiding me", a soft voice spoke before she could. The squad leader and his companion turned around, startled that neither of them had heard someone enter. The small alien was standing in the doorway, a telepathic translator around its neck. Silgvani had only gotten a short glimpse of it when they had opened the escape pod, but now that it stood there, it was almost unbelievable how small and frail its body looked.

Why did it come here? Why was it not hiding? Also, for some reason, it seemed to have changed its white shirt for a dark purple one. Had there been spare clothes in the escape pod? Either way, changing clothes in this situation indicated some strange priorities.

"An unknown species", the squad leader concluded. He had overcome his surprise rather quickly, and after seeing that it was unarmed, he relaxed again. "Interesting that something so small could survive long enough to reach the stars. You, bring it to me!"

The soldier nodded. They approached it rather leisurely, clearly not seeing the creature as a threat. The alien then made a sudden step forward and... hugged him?

The situation was so strange that neither the soldier nor the squad leader seemed to know how to react. Due to the way the alien had hugged the soldier - not only the torso but the arms as well - and its delicate figure, its arms weren't even able to reach all around his body, with the longest finger on each hand still being a little bit apart. It actually looked kind of adorable. But why did it do that?

Judging by its looks, it probably comes from a very safe world. Maybe the concept of "conflict" is foreign to its species?

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The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Earlier

"Hide!" Githaiy whispered to Nadine, who quickly crawled behind the large desk. The doctor meanwhile opened the drawer, pulled out a scalpel, and placed herself next to the door. She was no fighter, but depending on who their attackers were, she might have a shot if she surprised them. And she was pretty sure that she only heard one pair of steps.

The noise indicated that someone tried to break the lock. Whoever they were, they were no ally. The door opened, and without a second thought, the doctor attacked.

A strong hand grabbed her wrist and threw her around. She lost both her knife and her balance and tumbled to the ground, only to feel a heavy step on her thorax. As the whiplash subsided and her vision became clear again, she could see a barrel pointed at her face. And right after that, she realized who was holding it.

Shit.

It was a Kiroscha. Which basically meant that the ship was doomed. She immediately opened all her hands and placed them next to her head. This fight was over, further struggling could only make things worse. Hopefully they at least wouldn't discover Nadine.

Just as she thought that, she saw something next to the soldier's head. It was... wheels?

Indeed they were. The wheels of her large desk chair. Wheels that it had specifically because one person could NOT just lift it up easily. Yet there it was, upside down, and just a moment later, it came crashing into the Kiroscha's back. The soldier couldn't give off more than a pained grunt before they fell flat to the ground, cracks appearing on their hard shell. Behind him, Nadine came into view, who jumped high into the air and onto their attacker.

The metal floor vibrated as the Human landed. The oh-so-hard shell of the insectoid could offer no resistance to the heavy impact that completely betrayed the small shape. Her feet basically fell right through him, purple blood splattering in every direction. The Kiroscha died on the spot. As Githaiy desperately tried to comprehend the situation, the guard's words echoed in her auditory hole.

"And be careful! That thing is heavier than it looks!"

Could it be... was it possible that the scales weren't broken? Did she seriously weigh more than 500 vays? Though it would explain the creaking noise when she stepped on them.

As their attacker was no more, Nadine started to shiver and finally slumped to the ground. The doctor shot up.

"Are you alright?"

"I...I..." the girl stammered. "I...k-killed someone!"

Githaiy wanted to slap herself for thinking about her tests. Sure, killing a Kiroscha was an amazing feat, but Nadine was obviously a civilian. She was not used to seeing someone die, on top of that killing them herself. That being said, even though she was a doctor, she had no clue how to treat mental wounds.

"You... you didn't really have much of a choice. Um... err... ah! Don't think about the life you ended, think about the ones you saved!"

She wasn't sure if that would help her, but Githaiy had no idea what else to say, so she just sat next to her in silence. After a while, Nadine seemed to calm down a bit.

"He... would've killed us, right?"

"Probably."

She took a deep breath.

"Honestly... the scariest thing is how easy it was."

Githaiy couldn't help but chuckle.

"You were lucky. Kiroscha are famously hard to kill."

Nadine blinked.

"Really? But... they are insectoid, aren't they?"

She went to the corpse, and with a shaking hand, she broke off part of the shell with way too little effort.

"If the gravity was stronger, he probably couldn't even support his own weight."

Githaiy didn't know what to say to that. Of course one would die if gravity was too strong, that applied to any species. The Kirosha on the other hand were strong, fast, and could withstand energy weapons to a certain degree, only projectile weapons could take them out reliably. But those needed to be stationary due to their recoil. Yet these very same Kirosha were weak in Nadine's eyes?

"How many do you think there are? Please be honest, doc."

Githaiy thought for a moment.

"Assuming they found us by chance, it should only be one raid team, so five in total. Unfortunately more than enough to take out the guards."

"You are certain about that?"

"This ship has no interior battle stations. So yes, I am sure. We can only hope that they haven't found Her Highness yet."

Nadine seemed to think for a while, then she stood up.

"Wait, you can't seriously think about attacking them?"

Nadine turned around. She was trembling in fear, but her face showed her determination. "You guys saved me. And if I can help, then I must help, right?"

Githaiy was speechless. That was basically the exact same principle the princess followed. She simply couldn't object to that.

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"Hey, you had your fun, now bring it over," the squad leader said annoyed. But Silgvani noticed something strange: the soldier's hand was a fist, and his arms were shaking slightly. Was he trying to break free of this hug... but couldn't?

Also, the alien's hands were now a bit closer to each other. And as soon as the tips of its fingers touched, they interlocked, pulling its hands even closer together. A pained grunt escaped the soldier's throat as the hug kept getting tighter.

The Squad leader just stood there flabbergasted, seemingly unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Not that the princess was any better. How could this seemingly frail creature overpower a Krioscha?

The alien's hands now had a tight grip on each other and still kept pulling. The soldier had started to thrash his upper body around, but since his arms were trapped as well, there was little he could do. He couldn't even raise his weapon.

The hands were now gripping each other's wrists. The Krioscha screamed in pain, and only a moment later, with a disgusting CRUNCH, his shell gave in to the pressure. The alien let go, and the soldier fell to the ground, blood gushing out of the cracks in his shell, his middle squashed down to a diameter that definitely didn't support life. The alien then turned to the squad leader.

That seemed to snap him out of it, and he lunged for his weapon, but Silgvani leaped forward and kicked it away. Cursing, the squad leader turned to the alien and punched it. The alien in turn raised its arms to protect its face.

With a pained outcry, the squad leader stumbled backward and fell to his knees, holding his hand that looked like he had smashed it into a stone wall. Before he could do anything else, the alien was already behind him, grabbed his scalp and chin, and twisted with so little effort that his head almost came cleanly off, only still connected with a little tissue.

Princess Silgvani didn't know what to do except to stare at the alien in front of her, purple blood dripping from its hands and arms, borderless going over into the purple of its shirt.

It was only then that the princess realized that the alien had, in fact, NOT changed clothes.