What a waste.

One Robot destroyed.

Three of the assaulters dead. Five captured. Two at large, having run away when they had seen that the battle was lost.

He hadn't wanted to kill any of his assaillant, just to capture some of them and scare the other ones. Sure, he had given orders to kill at the absolute last necessity. But he had been certain this would have been unnecessary, seeing that none of the attackers were carrying any weapon that could have been truly dangerous to him or his ship.

But there have been the accident, totally unexpected.

In the middle of the fight, the Lizard-looking folk had struck one of the robot from behind, using his club. He must have been stronger than he looked, for he simply crushed the head of the Robot in a single descending strike. The Otherworlder saw the head being smahed, then the sparks and the lightning indicating that, somehow, a vital part of the machine has been touched. Before he could try to switch it off, the accident happened. Short circuit ? Energy overload ? He would need to examine what was left of the robot to be sure.

Whatever the reason was, the mechanical man had simply exploded. The Lizard-looking folk, closer than any of his fellow fighters, was struck first. A portion of the robot outer metallic shell struck him in the neck, like a shrapnel, beheading him so easily that the Otherworlder wasn't sure of what he had exactly seen on his viewing screens. The two other fighters were caught in the massive blast and nearly instantly turned in to ashes by the violence of the heat and flames. At least, the Foreigner hoped that none of them had suffered.

He had observed the fight on his monitoring screens. The struggle has been short, and brutal. The first 8 warriors came down on the approaching robots they had seen heading in their direction. As ordered, the robots hasn't opened fire first : it was important to know the strengths of his enemies before making a move. On this point, he had been VERY disappointed : with the exception of the Lizard folk, none of the other seven warriors had managed to land a decisive blow to any of the robot. The armor was solid, designed to withstand lasers at mid-range : a sword would have barely been able to scratch it. His enemies had fought, but without tactics. Just trying to apply blunt force without thinking of any strategy. In many ways, it was as if they didn't knew how to fight. Perhaps was it due to their fear of meeting an unknown threat on the battlefield ? He had seen many times in his life how fear could break the moral of the most well-trained armies. This is why his Brother's army was born without fear, without conscience. There was no fear to have under the benevolent eyes of Prime.

But yet, what a waste.

He was alone with his machines, lost on an unknown and alien world. He would need allies if he was to survive this ordeal and manage to contact his Brother's fleet.

And his first act had been to kill 3 people for nothing.

What a waste, indeed.

His gaze fell upon the corpse lying on the examination table. The creature was humanoid, approximatively 6.50 feet tall. Reptilian characteristics : a tail, scaly skin, a mouth full of fangs, claws on the fingers and toes, a very muscular torso, arms and legs... The clothes were basic garments, barely covering the body and certainly not made to protect their wearer. He couldn't identify the race, and all that was in the database was some references to an old civilization called the Sharkirs that were supposed extinct for some millenias. According to the database, this dead creature could be a possible evolved descendant from the Sharkir race... But then, how could some of his race have ended stranded here ?

Every question did not brought an answer, just more questions. Like that machine fixed on the torso of the Lizard folk, right where the heart was.

At first glance, it looked like a shield. And indeed, that'ss what he has first thought it was : some piece of armor designed to protect a vulnerable part of the body. Until he looked more closely and found that in was litteraly fixed in the flesh of the creature, and not simply attached to the torso. Also, the little bipping light was gone. The cameras installed in the holding cells where the other prisoners were had shown him that each of them was sporting the same piece of metal fixed right where their heart should be, and that each of the piece had a little light bleeping every two seconds or so. There could only be one explanation : this wasn't a piece of armour, but a technological machine. But what was its purpose ? There was only one way to get the answer to this question. And so, the dissection began.

Despite the hardness of the scaly hide, he didn't had any problems piercing it using the lasers and scalpels that were at his disposal. In minutes, he had detached the strange machine and was examining it. He was a battle-hardened veteran, and has seen countless horrors and deaths on the thousands of battlefields he has been, always leading the conquering army of his Brother. But it was the first time that he was seeing something so... devious.

The machine was litteraly fixed to the flesh. Below the metal plate was a tube, that was digging right in the chest, leaving a gapping hole. It was easy to understand that this hole was going right to the chest bone to the heart. The plaque would protect the exposed flesh not only against violent harm, but also against possible infections.

He looked at the tube, with caution. There was something inside it. But what ? Carefuly avoiding to have the tube pointed in his direction, he cautiously let the plaque rest on the dissecting table near the corpse. This was wise : as soon as the plate fell upon the desk, he heard some small whirling and felt it vibrates. Then, there was a click and something gushed out of the tube. It was pointy, sharp, deadly... A stake.

He felt a cold shudder down his spine. So that's what it was : the machine was designed to stake its bearer right throught the heart, in whatever circumstances were deemed appropriate. He looked at the sharpe end of the stake and saw a drop of a bright, yellow, stinking liquid. The drop fell on the table and quickly started to burn through the metal. His eyes opened wide in horror as he understood to have underestimated the deviousness of this engine : in case the stake through the heart wasn't enough, it was also injecting some kind of incredible virulent acid or poison. There was strictly no doubt that it was designed to kill in the most painful way possible. And every of his prisoners were equipped with such a machine ! But why ?

And the thought struck him, like thunder.

He whispered : "This can't be ! No one could voluntary accept to have such an engine fixed to his torso. Unless... They didn't asked for it !"

Those were not soldiers his robots had captured, but slaves.

He looked to the screens. This would explain why they fought so hard, without regard for their own lives : they knew their Masters were looking at them and could have activated the machines if they had wanted so... Or was it ? He had captured the five fighters, and they were still pretty much alive right now. Could it be that the machines were not remote controlled ? But then, what would be the point of equiping slaves with such an engine if you could not activate it ? Unless it was activated by something else : a sentence, an action, maybe something totally different ?

During the whole operation, he had left the channels opened in order to listen to the conversation his prisoners were having. He couldn't understand a single word of it, but the computer of the ship was recording everything and working on a translation. Every night, when he was sleeping, the computer connected itself to the chip in the back of his neck and was sending directly to his brain the vocabulary and sentences he has translated. This was the fastest way to learn a language, and he had used this method many times in the past.

"The brain is like an hard drive", his Brother has once told him "you can download, stock and delete informations in it. And you need nothing more than what I decide is needed for you to serve me best and perform your tasks the better way possible"

And thus, slowly, he was learning the strange language of this strange new world. It has been 3 days since the attack. In 2 more days, he would be able to go meet his prisoners in person and have a talk with them. In the meantime, they were fed with the ration bars and watched over.

During the first days, they were looking afraid, lost, disoriented... Only one of them expressed any kind of rebellious temperament : a tall female, lean and muscular, with lilac-coloured skin and pointy ears. She looked young, but her long pony-tailed hairs were already turning to grey. Since her awakening, she has looked at any possible way to escape her cell : testing the bars, the walls, looking for anything that could be used as a tool... Even now, she was seemingly asleep but the Otherworlder was pretty sure it was a masquerade. He didn't have to look long at her on the screens to discover that : she was waiting for something, a weak spot or a mean of escape.

She had the look of a leader, and he was pretty sure this is what she would have been to this ragtag band of misfits if it hasn't been for their curious masters and the horrible machinery that was struck to her torso. He wondered if she had already remarked that said machine was currently offline, despite still bleeping.

As one of its numerous defense systems, the ship was creating a null field that was neutralizing any technology not linked to the ship itself once you had entered it. The null field could easily be strenghtened in order to simply turn off every other technology, but a huge amount of energy was to be spent to generate such an effect. Right now, the Otherworlder had decided to not spend too much energy until he knew exactly who were his enemies and what perils were awaiting him outside.

His eyes fell once again upon the screen showing the cell in which the lean muscular female was locked.

Yes, a natural leader.

His decision was made : in 2 days from now, once he had managed to master enough of the native language, he would meet her for a discussion. He had already thought about the little story he was going to tell her in order to gain her trust. Not really lies, more a kind of modified truth. He was hoping this would work, as he was needing every ally he could find if he was to escape this backward world. Nothing was more important to him than to go back to his Brother alive, to show him that he has survived and wasn't the defect his Brother thought he was.

To show him his worth.

To show him his love.

To lead his Brother's armies across the galaxies once again.

And, perhaps, to finally be allowed to sit at his Brother's side.