As the corpse of the Kiroscha's leader fell to the ground, the bridge got silent. The princess couldn't do much more than sit there and stare in disbelief at the scene that had just unfolded in front of her. Her gaze went from the leader to the other soldier, over the pools of purple blood that kept getting larger, until her eyes met with those of the small alien. And it really was small, even though Silgvani was kneeling on the ground, she was still about half a lyne taller than it.

As the two looked at each other in silence, the alien's breathing became heavy and ragged. Its blood-stained hands started to shake, its eyes darted left and right as if it itself couldn't comprehend the situation. It then grabbed its head as if it were in pain, smearing purple all over its pink face. Finally, its eyes rolled up and it collapsed to the ground, its body hitting the ground with such a heavy impact that Silgvani could feel the vibration in the metal floor. Then, it got silent once more.

The princess couldn't tell if it had been just a few tiggs or a whole inva until the silence was broken by an audible gasp coming from the broken door.

"Your Highness! Oh, thank the First Ones you're alive!"

Looking up, Silgvani was relieved to see a familiar face. It was the Royal Physician, Doctor Githaiy. If she was still alive, then maybe others were as well. The realization finally allowed the princess to pull herself together.

"I am," she stated as she stood up. "What is the-"

"Nadine!" the doctor interrupted her as she noticed the unconscious alien and rushed to its side. "Nadine, can you hear me?!"

Now a bit calmer and less overwhelmed by the entire situation, Silgvani eyed the alien with curiosity. "Nadine. Is that its name?"

"Ah, apologies, Your Highness. Yes, that is her name. She is unconscious again, but her breathing is steady, so I assume she is otherwise fine. Or well, at least I hope so. So far I don't know enough about her to make more than an educated guess."

"I see. In that case, I would appreciate it if you could find the time to uncuff me AND EXPLAIN WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE FIRST ONES I JUST WITNESSED!"

The startled doctor sprang up and hectically freed the princess.

"I-I'm very sorry, Your Highness!" Githaiy apologized before undoing the cuffs. She then recounted the events with Nadine, up to the point where she killed the first Kiroscha.

"So, I assume she is a soldier accompanying this "colony program"?" the princess interjected. She had to completely reevaluate her first assessment of this new species. They could produce warriors that could go toe to toe with Kiroscha. Just how did that strength fit into this small stature?

"No, Your Highness. She is a civilian."

"... come again?"

"Until today, she has never experienced a fight, let alone killed someone", the doctor clarified and explained how the "Human" had reacted after she had saved her. Confused, the princess cocked her head.

"That... that doesn't really coincide with what I saw."

"I can guess what you mean, I was getting to that. You see, her homeworld has a much stronger gravity than what we are used to. She might be small, but I assume she compensates this with an incredible muscle density. But that is not all: after she had calmed down, she became determined to help us despite her fear. She picked up the canon of the Kiroscha she had killed, hoping she could scare the others with some warning shots. Unfortunately, while she was indeed strong enough to pick it up, her hands were too small to fire the thing. But even though she was afraid, she still wanted to help you. So, on the way up here, around a corner, she ran into another Kiroscha. And with "ran into", I mean ran him over, then panicked and bashed his head in. With her bare hands. Right after that, we could hear the steps of the third one, and then she... kind of... changed."

The doctor stopped as if she had trouble finding the right words.

"You mean a frenzy? Like an onric when it panics?" the princess asked, remembering the incident in the stables from when she was a child.

"No, no. More like the opposite. She became... I... I'm not sure. It was as if her brain had deleted every function besides hunting down her enemy. She was so efficient, it was honestly scary just to watch it happen. The third soldier was dead before he knew what was happening."

The doctor shuddered as she recalled the scene. It took Silgvani a while to process what she had heard, but in the end, the last part sounded more or less what she had seen just now. The question was, what had happened at the end?

"Well," she finally said, "there are still some things I don't understand. But one thing is clear, she saved us. So, you are the doctor, what should we do with her?"

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Githaiy thought for a moment.

"Hm, as I said, I can only make educated guesses at the moment. I'd normally say we should bring her to the medical bay, but I doubt the two of us can lift 500 vays, potentially even more. Her kind is endothermal, so I guess preventing a loss of body temperature would be good. I'll see if I can find a blanket-"

Right as she heard that Silgvani tore the cape from her back and walked towards Nadine.

"Y-your Highness, you don't have to..."

Before she could finish the sentence, the purple Kiroscha blood on Nadine's body was already soaking into the expensive fabric. The green cape was a royal symbol, signifying her status as heir to the throne. The noble clans would likely scoff at how she treated it right now, but they weren't here and she had a dozen of these things at home, so there was no reason to mind that right now.

"There. Next?"

"Um, well, since I can't move her I also can't clean the blood off until she wakes up... Assuming she collapsed from exhaustion, she'll probably be hungry."

"Can she consume our food?"

The doctor shook her head.

"I unfortunately do not know, Your Highness. Judging by her cell structure though, it's safe to assume she needs a lot of water, so I guess I'll get some of that for a start."

Silgvani nodded.

"You do that, I'll look for survivors. Hopefully, our little guest was able to prevent at least some deaths with her actions."

----------------------------------------

Githaiy left the bridge and made her way to the supply storage. She hated how powerless she felt, but that was just how it was. She still knew close to nothing about Nadine's physiology, or what would help her and what wouldn't. She couldn't move her, she couldn't even roll her over without risking severe injuries to herself. All she could do was let her lay on the ground and hope that she would be fine until she woke up.

Compared to other vessels of the same purpose, the Star Treader was on the smaller end. It consisted of three floors ignoring the engine room and cargo space, the main floor being the middle one. It contained most facilities like the bridge, conference room, medical bay, canteen, and so on. Below were the crew's quarters, and above the royal chambers, although the princess preferred to spend her time on the bridge unless she was either working or sleeping.

Turning around a corner, the doctor found herself in front of a closed blast door. It was completely sealed, so behind it was probably the section where the Kiroscha had blown a hole in the hull. She sighed and turned around. Not wanting to make her detour bigger than necessary, Githaiy decided to take a shortcut through the conference room.

The sight that awaited her there was unfortunately not a pretty one. She found the large table in the middle to be tipped over, as well as the mangled corpses of three guards behind it. It was not hard to guess what had happened here. The princess's guards were, of course, trained elites, but they had simply been outmatched. To wound a Kiroscha with a handheld energy weapon, one needed to hit the same spot multiple times. What little cover a table gave could never buy enough time to achieve that when the enemy could just charge through gunfire. And that was before factoring in the heavy canons the Kiroscha carried.

And then came Nadine. Githaiy shuddered again as she remembered. Once the alien girl had taken off her shoes, her already quiet steps had become completely silent. That, combined with her small frame had caused Githaiy to lose track of her multiple times, and she had known that Nadine was there. For the Kiroscha, death had literally come out of nowhere. And that was just one single human. Somewhere out there was an entire species like her. Granted, going by the circumstances Nadine had described, it was likely that a true first contact wouldn't happen until many generations in the future, but it was bound to happen at some point.

Finally reaching the kitchen the doctor opened the door.

"It's me, Githaiy!", she called, just to be sure. "It is safe! I'm coming in!"

A head appeared behind some crates. Githaiy recognized him. His name was Kahbbut, the ship's cook.

"Lady Githaiy?" he asked carefully. "What do you mean, it's safe? Did we win?"

"That we did. I'm glad to see you alive."

"B-but" he stammered "I heard the guards shout something about the Kiroscha!"

"Yes, we were attacked by a Kiroscha raid squad."

"And... we won?" he asked with audible confusion. Not that she could blame him for it.

"It is a long story, please just believe me for now. Her Highness is looking for survivors, you should go to her."

Hearing that the princess was alive seemed to give him some courage. He came out from his hiding spot and hurried to find her.

Thankfully, the kitchen had not been the showdown of any fight and was still orderly. Once she had found a small canister of water, Githaiy made her way back to the bridge. She had, however, already forgotten about the closed blast door. Quietly cursing herself, she turned around and went on another detour, not entering the conference room this time. On her way, she found another group of corpses, not all of them were guards. She decided it would be best to record the names of the fallen, so she quickly made some notes on her datapad. A glance at the chronograph then told her that it had already been a whole inva since she had left Nadine, so she hurried back.

To her surprise, she found the bridge devoid of the small alien. At the place where she had been lying, there was now a puddle of a strange, light-brown liquid, partly covering the corpse of the Kiroscha leader. It gave off a putrid smell that made Giathaiy slightly nauseous and also seemed to eat through the exoskeleton of the Insectoid. Some kind of acid, maybe? Where did this come from?

"Nadine?!" she called out.

"I'm here" a soft voice answered, sounding even meeker than before. Githaiy turned around. The small alien was sitting in a corner between some consoles, the royal cape wrapped tightly around her tiny body. The doctor hurried to close the distance between them and knelt down in front of her. The blood on her face had mostly dried up, and the spots that were still clean seemed to have slightly changed color, now being more pale than before.

"How are you?"

"I... I honestly... don't know" she said with a slight tremble in her voice. "It's like I should feel something but... don't? I..."

Before she could finish Princess Silgvani, flanked by two surviving attendants, entered with hurried steps, looked around, and spotted them.

"Her Highness on-"

"Don't bother", the Princess interrupted the attendant annoyed before looking at Githaiy and Nadine. "Change of plan, we're abandoning ship!"