"Don't! Don't Shoot! Please I don't want to die!"
The Hunter heard nothing more than an inane series of roars and clicks.
Easily she could have translated the vocalizations. She could have done so before the battle even started, and heard every threat thrown at her from the now dead pirates. She hadn't, and she never did.
The Hunter assumed threats were all she would ever get from the mindless, aggressive enemy. But if she knew that they were capable of pleading, of showing a sick sense of cowardice and begging for their lives, it might not be so easy.
Slaying pirates. It was her job, her duty. Such is war to kill the enemy, and for the Hunter it was easy.
Because they did not speak her language.
Because their expressions were incomprehensible.
Because they were of a different species.
Because their goals and ideals did not correspond with her own.
Because when she saw one, she saw not an individual but a part of a whole. Another mindless, hideous alien whose species orphaned her, and started a casualty-heavy war that spanned the whole of the galaxy.
Their government was highly militaristic, and all troops were expendable. Merely expendable pawns to be thrown into battle without any care as to the value of their life as a sentient being.
He didn't want to be expendable. He didn't want to fight a war, but he was forced to. Desperately he kicked, he fought and he roared out pleadings for his pathetic life. None were heard. He was nothing to her.
The Hunter charged. The deathly golden light of her canon casting sinister shadows across her enemy's face.
"I'm begging you to spare me!"
Nothing but alien babble.
Nothing left but a simmering crater that once housed a sentient mind.