"Wait, hold on. I don't get it." Elite Flobee shifted forward in his seat as he chewed the tip of his stylus. "Why would they surrender if it means they'll lose? I know offworlders are weird but don't they still want to win?"
A curious murmur ran through the lecture hall, from the lowly short chairs at the bottom to the row of sub-commander lounges at the top. The seating curved in a fat arch around a podium at the bottom where the lecturer stood. According to Red's schedule, The High Extractor was supposed to come today. Something must have happened because they'd sent an understudy instead.
A frail unimpressive Irken in gray robes sat cross-legged atop the desk, surrounded by a set of four holograms. Two large Truffloids with wide mushroom caps huddled around a third, smaller Truffloid with a tiny cap. All three stared at the fourth hologram, smallest of all and highlighted in neon as it sat in the palm of the instructor's hand.
"A fair question, Elite," she said. "Let's examine the basics. The offworlders want to win. You also want to win. Lethal force isn't an option in this scenario. What do we do now? We change what winning means for the enemy. In this case, the enemy's goal is to expose you and your base." She lifted a spinning Irken hologram in her opposite hand. "So you make them want something else. We replace one valued item with another." With a flick of the wrist, the holograms of the little Truffloid and the Irken symbol switched hands. "They value saving the shroomling's life more than they value ending yours."
Red huffed. Easy enough to bribe soft dopey mushroom people. His eye slid to Purple beside him. What about species that actually mattered?
Slouched with his legs sprawled over the seat, Purple stared out of the auditorium's translucent walls. He didn't watch the battle mechs firing practice shells on the horizon. He didn't watch the Vortian mechanics tending to damaged bots outside the courtyard. He didn't even watch sub-commander Pleeps arguing with the attendance drone beside the door. He'd been in screensaver mode for two hours. Every few minutes, he blinked.
Nothing going on up there at all. Maybe. For all Red knew, Purple busied himself with snackcake thoughts or plans to stab Commander Poki in the eye. Enemy plans needed a baseline. How could you draw new goalposts when you didn't even know what the old goal was? What was a win for Purple?
"Instructor?" Down in the mezzanine, Tenn squinted at her notes as if they'd been written in Slarkesi. "Uh, the shroomling—it's biologically produced offspring, right? That means they don't use anything but themselves to create them?"
The lecturer brought her bright pink eyes to Squad 732's section. "That's correct, yes."
"Doesn't that mean they can just… make a new one?" Tenn twirled her stylus in the air, miming a screwdriver. "How much does it cost? Even if it's a lot, the bounty for finding Invaders should cover it anyway on most planets. Is this just protocol for planets that don't know Irkens?"
Sponch stretched in his lounge and rolled his eyes. "As if anywhere worth taking doesn't know Irkens."
"It's theoretical," Tenn muttered.
"Actually, for many species—Truffloids included—reproduction is free of charge." The instructor smiled and nodded as the auditorium murmured in confusion. "Most don't even require a quota or a schedule for it. Isn't that interesting?"
Larb's voice piped up from the lower rows. "So they can make these things themselves whenever they want to, however many they want to, for FREE, and they still choose the offspring for the win? Why?!"
"Because they don't want another one." The instructor tossed the little shroomling hologram up and down while its holographic guardians flailed their silly little hands. "They want this one. They like this one."
"But why? Won't they like a new one just as good? They can probably even make a better one. Look at that thing, it's crumb size!"
"They might. However, the new offspring couldn't replace the old offspring. It's special to them." Which didn't make a spark of sense at all. The instructor frowned as the lecture hall murmured in confusion. "Hmm. It is a little hard to grasp, isn't it?" She motioned towards the top row. "Perhaps one of our sub-commanders with hostage experience can clarify."
"What?" Purple's antennae flicked up and the lights came back on. "Oh, it's uh because of family bonds and—"
Red's hand popped up. "Better question: who CARES? Offworlders are just weird; it's not that complicated!"
The holograms vanished with a clap of the instructor's hands. She hopped off the desk, pointing straight at Red. "Excellent! Very succinct, Elite. I couldn't have said it better."
Of course she couldn't, that's why Red had said it instead.
"Your job is to conquer, not to research. If research helps your mission, by all means, do it. If you know hostages are a high-value item, you use it. If a bottle of water is a high-value item, you use that. Why it's a high-value item doesn't matter so much as how you use that item. Done correctly, we get what we want and the offworlder gets whatever we allow them to get."
Speaking of getting stuff… Red reached into his PAK to pull out the orb canister he'd confiscated from Purple hours ago. Still shut tight with no indication of how to crack it open. He tilted the orb side to side, rolling it from one side of his lap to the other. Nothing sloshed or rolled this time, and the canister sagged heavily in his lap, much heavier than he remembered. Weird.
Why get a thermos so hard to open? Red's fingers grazed the smooth seamless sides. Maybe Purple had coded it to his DNA signature or PAK number. But if he'd known Red couldn't open it, why had he thrown such a fit when it'd been taken? Any why—wait, the orb was moving. Why was it moving?
A spindly pair of arms sprouted up from between Red's legs. Little hands wrapped around the orb and snatched it out of his lap.
"What the?"
Before the words left his mouth, the little thief vanished, orb and all. Hidden in the underbrush of heads and shoulders and PAKS, Red couldn't see where he'd gone. Couldn't have gone far in a crowd this tight. There—a flicker of movement one row and five seats down.
Red sat up straight in his chair. "HEY!"
The audience shifted and turned in their seats to stare at him, and the thief became one squirming body in a sea of squirming bodies. Great.
The instructor paused in the lecture. "Oh, did you have additional commentary, Sub-commander?"
Purple hauled himself into the sitting straight, one arm flopped over his legs and the other braced against the chair. A sour pheromonal funk hung in the air, and he sputtered in tight nervous giggles.
"No, it's just that I saw…" Red cast a side glare as Purple sputtered louder.
The thief was long gone. Red could call him out right now, and the rotten smaller might get rooted out. That is, after being questioned about the orb and why Red thought it was worth interrupting the lecture. Worse, he'd have to admit a smaller had gotten the better of him.
Red sighed. "I saw most of this stuff in our guides already. What's this extra talk do for our training when the databases and profiles are right there?" Not much of a save, but it'd do.
The instructor tapped her chin in thought. "True. But how quickly can you pull a species profile from your PAK's database? Five seconds? Twenty seconds? A minute?" Her voice rose to address the rest of the room. "Can you cross-reference enemy weak points before it tears out your squeedlyspooch? An Invader can. An Invader must. An enemy planet gives one test, but luckily, Devastis gives many. Isn't that wonderful ?" She scanned the audience for agreement. A few gave hesitant nods, but not many. It didn't seem to bother her.
Metal glinted in the top row. Two spots across, Elite Sponch leaned in his lounge to drop a fistful of jellybeans into the waiting hands below him. The orb sat shining in his lap.
Purple followed Red's gaze and blinked curiously. "Huh." When Sponch smiled and waved at them, Purple gave a limp wave back. "All his now, I guess. Snacktime's soon, right?"
Red scowled at both of them.
"Exams and midterms are all scheduled of course," the instructor continued, "but in the field, enemies don't care what the calendar says. That's why your Prime Commanders and I—" She stretched her arm towards a skybox, where Commander Poki watched the symposium with a grape soda and a side-order of boredom. "—have developed a pop quiz initiative."
A nervous chuckle rattled under Purple's breath. "Red? This wasn't on the syllabus, was it?"
"You'd know if you'd read it, Plurple." No, the syllabus mentioned nothing about pop quizzes, but he'd read something about extra credit. This sounded more like mandatory credit, though.
Commander Poki rose to full height in her box. "On that note, I presume you've seen the scoreboard."
The shadow of her arm pointed across the room to a computer screen that stretched from floor to ceiling. PAK numbers flipped over and under each other, establishing rank and scores in real-time: exam scores, drill scores, kill counts, and extra credit points. There, in the middle column, sat the marker for pop quizzes, currently an N/A for all PAK IDs.
The scores for today's drill had come in already. Red kept his eyes on his own A+ and tried to ignore Sponch's S++ two slots above him.
"Those scores and ranks will follow you from now until graduation." Poki eyed the audience with a huff. "If you live that long. This isn't the Smeetery; you're quizzed when your monitor determines you need to be quizzed. Open answer. Three questions. Two out of three to pass. Any questions?"
Red tapped the monitor strapped to his chest, linked snugly to his PAK. A standard issue bio-enhancement for all Elites, he'd been told that monitors secured the PAK to the spine as a security feature against accidental (or intentional) removal. Apparently, it came with a few extra tricks.
"What happens if we fail a pop quiz?" asked Tenn. She angled her neck to watch Skoodge patting the bloodstains out of his uniform down in the bottom row. "Will it bring scores down for the rest of the squad?"
The instructor laughed. "Goodness, no. Pop quizzes are personally assigned and at random. If they affected the squad, why, a talented Elite could trigger seven quizzes in a day and curve the whole squad. That wouldn't be very fair, would it?" She put her hands in her pockets as she paced across the stage. "No, when you fail a quiz you'll get a surprise."
Purple stiffened. "What kind of a surprise?"
A bright smile curved across the instructor's face. "An educational surprise!"
Stress stink radiated from Purple like month-old milk bars. He sank in his seat, antennae stalks so flat and low they flicked against Red's arm.
"Ew quit that." Red waved him off and tried to lean as far as he could from Purple's stinky gross head. "What's your problem any—"
THOOM!
The left rows erupted in a massive pillar of fire and smoke and shrieking. In the epicenter sat Elite Sponch. Two yellow eyes blinked in the fumes and ashes of what had once been his chair.
The distinct scent of explosive jelly and burnt metal lingered through the top rows. A bomb. The whole time, Purple's canister had been a bomb. In Red's PAK. All day.
Purple shrugged. "I told you you wouldn't like it. It's not my fault you don't listen to me." He sat up to admire the carnage and pointed. "Wow, that's a bigger blast range than I thought. The boom jelly got all the way into the cheap seats. Nice."
Down in the middle rows, Sponch's squadmate thrashed and squealed, blindly reaching for his burst eye as it swung like a pendulum from his skull. Stray globs of explosive jelly fizzed on his uniform and smoldered on his skin.
Larb cried out as smoldering chunks of flesh bounced across his desk. "Cut it out, Spleen! You're getting biohazards all over my notes!" He waved his hand in the air as hard as he could. "Commander Pokiiiiiiii! Elite Spleen is being a distraction, tell him to stop."
"MY BRAIN IS ON FIRE! IT'S MELTING!" Spleen sure had a good set of vocals on him. He should have gone for Announcer. "MERCIFUL IRK I CAN TASTE MY BRAINS!"
Larb put his hands on his hips. "And he's being loud, too."
"Spleen! If you can't behave, you're getting three hours in The Cube." Poki glowered over the edge of her skybox. "That goes for the rest of you. The High Extractor came a long way for you ungrateful slugs. Show your Higherarchs some respect."
"Higherarch?" Red glanced from the skybox to the stage. Below, the frail Irken in gray observed the activity in the audience without comment or complaint. "Like… like as in a Higherarch higherarch?"
Purple bobbed his head at the podium. "Oh. Yeah, that's High Extractor Foma. She runs the Information Extraction department."
"You're ripping my wires. She's gotta be like six feet tall!"
"Six foot six." Purple crossed his arms and sank into the padding of his lounge chair. "Give or take a millimeter."
Most of the fires had gone out, but almost nobody cared about the symposium lecture anymore. The instructional holograms vanished with a snap of the Extractor's fingers. She shook her head with a smile and a sigh. "I suppose Elites will be Elites, won't they? We're approaching our time limit anyway, so that's enough for today, I think. Wonderful meeting Irk's future Invaders. Spleen, let's work on our self-control next time, yes?"
Slowly, Purple eased out of his seat. He looked to the left, looked to Red on the right, and nodded towards the door.
They hadn't been dismissed yet. Red stayed put. If new information about exams or extra credit dropped at the last minute, he didn't count on the smallers to catch it. Especially when some of them may or may not have been on fire.
"Study well, everyone, your Empire's counting on you. I'll see you all again in two years for interrogation training. You're dismissed."
There. A few seconds never killed anyone. Red saved today's notes, stretched his stiff muscles, and got up.
Purple tapped his foot at the end of the aisle. The minute Red's butt left the seat, he rushed for the door.
The Extractor turned. "Oh, Purple!"
Purple's shoulders sank.
"In all the excitement I almost forgot our briefing. I'll see you in twenty, right?"
"Wouldn't miss it," Purple sighed. He bared his teeth with a hiss as Red caught up to him at the door.
Red blinked. "What?"
The wall turret aimed right between Red's eyes, the center of the barrel already glowing. "Please identify."
Red rolled his eyes. "PAK#e82d10. Like last time." The turret folded back into the wall and he speed-walked to close the distance before the tether started to buzz.
Nothing had demanded Purple's ID, and he didn't stop for Red to administer his. In fact, since they'd left the seminar building, Purple hadn't dropped pace or looked up from his gauntlet once. Hadn't spoken a word either.
Red supposed he ought to be grateful for the silence. "I'm getting pretty sick of giving my number every twenty paces in this dumb place." Twenty paces was a wild guess. For all Red knew, it could have been every fifty paces or every three feet. Hard to tell when the corridors flipped corners faster than Planet Jackers flipped real estate.
The Devastis Sector of Imperial Defense, Information Extraction, Hostile Containment, and Massage Parlor nestled miles below the planet's surface. The elevators didn't even come this far; they'd had to take a teleporter down here. For fun, Red had tried creating a mental map of the area. He'd given up after their twentieth sharp turn. Death mazes had simpler paths than this. Better music, too.
The facility's elevator music sounded like air chewed up, spat out, chewed up again, and tossed into a bubble. Better than hearing Purple talk, but it got old fast. "What's with the soundtrack anyway? Doesn't this place have more than five songs?" Turrets perked up at the end of the corridor. "For the last time, I'm e82d10!"
"Eight." Purple mumbled so fast, Red thought he'd imagined it.
"Eight what?"
Purple twitched his antennae. "It's been eight songs, not five. I think this one's called ' n'. It's probably for the guys working interrogation today. It's some kinda… brain pokey technique."
"Like when you yell really loud at prisoners until they get sick and leak fluids?" Red had seen someone from Interrogation do that once.
"Nah. This is supposed to keep prisoners calm." Purple looked up in thought. "Or drive them crazy. Both? I don't remember; I didn't do much in Interrogation before I got moved."
Red smirked. "What'd they kick you out for?"
"Unnecessary roughness." Purple scoffed as he scrolled through his newsfeed for the seventh time. "Why did we even have chainsaws if we weren't supposed to use 'em?"
The corridor stopped at a dead end. Light blue glowed along the edges of a flat wall too abrupt to be a wall.
"Hey, it's me," Purple told the wall. "I'm here for my 26:15."
Unseen speakers chimed the last four notes of the Imperial Anthem and the wall split itself open to the shiniest corridor Red had ever seen. He examined their reflections in the mirrored walls as they entered, pleased to see that most of the grime of today's drills had slipped off his uniform. The place smelled of glass and antiseptic, with a touch of that buttery sweet scent found in snack bars and smeeteries. Even so, it couldn't overpower that funky stink wafting from Purple's glands.
Red swore he knew that smell. Under the scent of the corridor and old traces of battlefield grit and smoke bombs, he couldn't pin it. It didn't have the sharp tang of fear, but it was in the neighborhood. Stress, maybe? It sure didn't do Red's sensitive stomach any favors after that teleporter trip.
Purple's boots squeaked on the tile. His pace slowed to a dubious shuffle. "Can't believe I'm missing snacktime for this."
Yep. Stress stink for sure. About time Purple took something seriously. Too bad he had to go and drag Red's snacktime into it too.
"You think she knows that bomb was mine?" He kept his eyes on his gauntlet, fast scrolling through coupons and junk mail. "Of course she does. Always does." Purple shot Red a glare. "You have to put your big dumb hands into everything, don't you? I was saving that bomb for later."
Which he could have just explained hours ago and saved Spleen a trip to the infirmary. "Saving it for what?"
"I dunno, just… for later. Shut up! Don't change the subject; you're the one who messed up the timer by shaking it all over the place. Why can't you mind your own business?"
"Oh, like it's my fault you can't keep track of your stuff. You started it." Red raised an eyebrow. "Dunno what you're all gunky about. She's not your boss anymore. It's not like she can do anything to you."
As far as he knew, all the Higherarchs stood at the same rank. A High Extractor couldn't overturn a High Commander. Not unless the High Commander stepped back and let her… and to be fair, Poki might let her. Still, that didn't change the height difference. "What's a six-footer doing in charge of this whole operation, anyhow?" Assuming that said operation had more to it than glass halls, a corridor maze, and a bunch of annoying turrets.
"Don't have to be the tallest one in the Empire to get Higherarch," Purple said, "just the tallest one in the department. Nobody around was taller than her back then."
"Nobody in all of Information Extraction got over six foot six?"
A few feet down the hall, one of the walls—or a door within the wall—slid open. The High Extractor poked her head out to smile and wave at them.
"Oh, sure they did. They're just not alive anymore." A stiff toothy smile cracked across Purple's face. He waved back and scampered up to meet her. "Hey, look who's here!"
Watching him salute his old boss with more compliance and respect than he'd given Poki (or anyone), Red wondered if he'd misjudged her before. The nuances of height and presence could get lost in such a big auditorium. Perhaps he'd been so focused on the lecture he'd failed to judge the instructor properly.
But no. If anything, close proximity made it worse. Like zooming into a corroded hull, little weaknesses and imperfections wormed out of the Extractor by the dozen. Frail, undersized skeletal structure. Pathetic muscle build. Voice of some meek-mouthed drone from customer service. No bio-enhancements to compensate for any of it, save for the scatter of neural nodes rooted in her neck. He'd seen sturdier cadets in the smeetery. This brittle embarrassment should never have been within miles of a Higherarch position. Middle management, at best.
It was gross.
She'd brought snacks along, though, so she couldn't be all bad. Condensation beaded on the warm box of donuts in her hands. "26:15, right on time! You're doing much better with schedules now, Purple. I'm glad to see you've learned to respect the Empire's time." Extractor Foma drummed her fingers on the lid of the donut box. "But…"
Purple winced.
"I have to wonder why you couldn't show that same respect for your mission. Two years is an exceptionally long time for just one infiltration assignment." She leaned against the wall and blinked at him curiously. "Now, Commander Poki says you reported a need for an extension to your six-month estimate. Is that correct?"
The stress pheromones thickened. Purple stole a pleading glance at Red. "Uh."
Red shrugged. Hey, you said it, not me. They'd lined their stories up after that part, and it's not like Red knew anything about it. Besides, Purple flew himself into this wormhole in the first place. Wasn't Red's job to tug him out.
"Uh, yes, that's right." Purple's eyes bobbed between Foma's face and the box in her hands. "I needed more time for empathetic bonding and persuasive teardown procedure. It's kind of hard to sabotage anyone when they're still watching you day and night. I wanted to file an official extension request, but I couldn't transmit. It would've gotten too much attention."
"That's perfectly understandable, but I'm afraid your old shipmates here in containment told a slightly different story." She gestured toward the halls of mirrors around them. The lilt of her voice dipped slow and deliberate. "Somebody on this planet," she said, "is lying to me."
The box opened with a flick of her thumb. Thirteen freshly baked donuts steamed beneath the mirrored lights. Scents of sugar and chocolate steamrolled the antiseptic and weird pheromones. Flecks of powdered sugar sparkled on Foma's glove as she lifted a donut out and took a slow bite.
"I mean—" Purple's eyes fought between the Extractor's face and the rope of viscous filling that dangled from the crust. Goo plopped onto the toe of his boot. "Offworlders and insurgents lie all the time. Can't get a straight word out of 'em, you know?"
Foma's pink eyes twinkled. "That's absolutely right! Why, that's what Infiltrators like you are for, isn't it? You create friends from enemies. You need them to like you. Trust you." She took another bite. "That becomes a little difficult when an Infiltrator kills three Screwheads, doesn't it? In fact, when that Infiltrator only leaves the last Screwhead—the last of a family unit—alive, it becomes very difficult. He hates Irkens now more than he did at the start of your mission. My Interrogators have to start from scratch."
Purple glared at Red.
Red ignored him.
Foma took a patient bite of donut.
A long groan dragged out of Purple and he glared at Red again. "You know the whole thing got compromised right? On my way to Devastis, I got boarded and I had to—"
"According to the coroner drones, your hostages expired seven months, two weeks, four days, and eighteen hours before The Lenient contacted the ship."
Purple's antennae drooped a few inches. "I can explain."
"I look forward to it." The Extractor stepped back with a gentle sweep of her bony arm. "After you, Elite."
The rest of the donut vanished in two bites and a sweep of the tongue.
About time. They could have done all of this in her quarters instead of hanging around the hallways like a bunch of loitering dorks. Red cracked his joints and stepped up to meet Purple in the doorway.
Purple watched him from the corner of his eye. The stress stink tapered off. What, did he seriously think Red would let him go in by himself? They'd built that report for the Commanders together, they had to fly it together. Flying solo, Purple might let the whole thing fall apart, or worse, throw Red under the gears.
Couldn't be too hard, right? It'd worked on Poki, and Poki was an inch taller and five times scarier than some weak creep in a lab robe. They'd just fly the same story as before, maybe fancy it up in places, let Purple toss excuses for his spy gig, and done. They could probably catch the end of snacktime.
Foma looked up. "Ooh, no, sorry. Just him." She nodded at Purple for the go-ahead. Inside waited a desk and a stool made for someone half Purple's size. "Don't worry, we won't be long. You can wait out here if you like."
Red stepped closer. "If it won't take long, you won't mind if I wait inside. I'm his official sub-commander, so I need to monitor for…" What did officers monitor soldiers for, again? "For accurate reporting… things. Things that happened. That I was there for."
"Irk sees your dedication, Sub-commander Red. However, I'm afraid this particular matter extends beyond your military field."
Red's language processors never downloaded the expansion for polite talk, but he knew 'sit down and shut the fuck up' when he heard it. "Okay, but—"
"This briefing is classified to Information Extraction. Please appreciate that you are allowed down here at all."
In the office behind her, Purple circled the stool as he searched for the least-uncomfortable sitting position. The stool was welded to the floor, roughly five feet from the door. Five or… or six.
The ring around Purple's ankle began to glow bright red under his uniform.
Definitely six feet. Red's ankle rubbed against his leg. It itched.
She glanced between the rings. "Ohhh, I see." Extractor Foma's long antennae perked with a curious chirp. "I've never seen a tether like this used on Irkens before! My, Poki must have been upset. What's the range on this? Eight feet? Ten? Four? It couldn't be four; something would have happened by now. I imagine that must be terribly uncomfortable for you."
Red planted both feet on the tile. Feet that absolutely did not itch at all. "I've had worse. Look, if it's a security issue, I can just stand in back with a privacy helmet."
"I prefer my soundproof walls if it's all the same to you."
"It's not."
"I understand," she said. "You didn't ask to be part of this, and now I'm disrupting your study time when you're already tethered. I'm sorry for that, I truly am." Foma offered an apologetic shrug. "It's a consequence we can't avoid, but this is how we learn, huh? We can always do better next time!"
Red rolled his eyes. A sliver of free time a day, and he had to waste it waiting for Purple to clean up his mess. "This isn't going to take all night, is it? I've got stuff to do."
"He'll be in and out before you know it. Here, I'll give you something to pass the time." The nodes in the High Extractor's neck blinked in sync as she knocked on the wall behind her.
Panel by panel, the corridor's reflective walls went transparent. Red found himself surrounded by a patchwork of two-way mirrors. In every window, prisoners paced barren cells, huddled in corners, stared into the void, slammed their hands against their earholes, or soundlessly talked to themselves. Boring stuff compared to the broadcasts, but better than staring at his reflection.
On the other side of the High Extractor's clear office wall, Purple fidgeted on his little stool. He'd figured out a decent seating position, legs awkwardly splayed in a semi-crouch with the tethered ankle sloping towards the door. He frowned through the glass, though he didn't seem to register Red at all.
Foma pointed to the cell opposite the office, where a Truffloid with a withered cap hung upside down. "Interrogator Enip will be along soon to work File TR34. We think he might talk soon."
Red squinted at the offworlder. "Don't those guys usually have fourteen fingers?"
"They do when they cooperate. Sorry again for the inconvenience. You're missing snacktime for this, right? Here you go." Extractor Foma plucked out one more donut for herself and handed Red the rest of the box. "I couldn't finish them by myself anyhow." She offered a nod and let the door slide shut behind her.
The box had eleven donuts left. Quality, too. This could get a full-page spread in the snack mags, easy. Even elites didn't get a sniff of this stuff outside of holidays. A token of appreciation.
Leftovers. She—standing at a measly six foot six—had given Red her leftovers, as if he ought to be grateful for it. As if she outranked…
Red crossed his arms and let himself fall hard against the glass. Fine, technically she did outrank him. But still! He ought to dump the whole box out and stomp the donuts into mush. That'd show her what he thought of her handouts.
Red's tongue swiped frosting off his jaws and swallowed the donut in his mouth. He frowned at the eight remaining donuts, snatched up another, and shoved it into his mouth. Of course, he wouldn't actually throw them out for real. These were top-tier snacks; he wasn't stupid. He ought to, though.
And what was that "I'm sorry" stuff? Who on Irk apologized to a lower rank? Had she been making fun of him, or had it been her smaller instincts coming out? Red didn't know and didn't care to, but the whole thing bunched up his guts inside.
Across the hall, the Truffloid thrashed and swung from the ceiling. It clutched its remaining fingers together and soundlessly babbled to an Irken sitting in a chair below him. The Interrogator nodded and gestured to the canister of liquid nitrogen at his feet. Red hadn't seen him come in, not that he'd been paying attention.
Under bright corridor lights, the window reflections bounced off of each other. If Red angled his head right, he could see Foma's office behind him. Purple's report overlayed the Truffloid interrogation like a glitched transmission.
Purple's mouth moved fast. His hands moved faster. Fingers tangled around each other. Arms branched big and wide to mime something huge and expanding. He paused for effect, waited a beat, and flip-flopped his torso in five directions. The High Extractor peered down at him from a hoverchair that elevated her above her rightful height. She listened with steepled fingers and a neutral expression.
With a great swing of his legs, Purple hopped off the stool and began to pace around the office. Not quick, not slow, but an even stroll steady enough to dig out of the trench he'd found himself in. By the look of it, he paced about five feet from the wall.
The itchy tingle in Red's ankles faded.
Running around the Extractor's office made Purple look like a lunatic. It also covered those precious extra inches of tether distance.
For all of Purple's faults, the soldier knew how to strategize. Improvise? He knew how to do something. Red didn't know how deeply Purple had planned that bomb for Sponch (or Pleeps, or whoever it'd been for) but he'd had something in mind. Whatever it was, Red confiscating it probably hadn't been part of the plan. Probably. Even if it'd sprung too early, the orb had still exploded in Sponch's lap in the end. It could have burst in Red's lap, or his PAK, or somewhere else where Purple would've got caught in the blast. It hadn't.
Either Purple had the best luck on Devastis, or he'd recalibrated fast on his feet, or he'd prepped backup plans. Or there'd never been any plan at all, and Purple really had just been saving it for later. Who knew?
Red bopped his head against the wall and sighed.
OBSERVATION 8: After a day of observation, I only know that I barely know anything about him.
Nothing substantial, anyway. Just basic stuff he'd already known.
Bright jelly filling squirted into Red's hands as he bit into his donut. "Huh. Pizza flavor."
Not bad, but a third-tier flavor, if you asked him. He chewed slower. Kind of strange for it to be in a donut. Pizza had never been a popular flavor, but it had niche fans, like… Like Purple. He'd had a whole plate of pizza rolls in the microwave when Red boarded his ship. Red swallowed. The donut went down thick and hard. Slowly, his eyes trailed down to the box in his lap. Who exactly had the Extractor gotten these for?
Purple's briefing had been scheduled right after the Extractor's lecture. Snacktime always followed the last exercise of the day, and Elites only got one designated snacktime a day. The timing hadn't been a coincidence. The Extractor had planned on eating these in front of him. Red wasn't eating Foma's leftovers. He was abetting Purple's punishment.
Suddenly, Red didn't feel very hungry anymore. "That," he said to the last three donuts, "is sick ."
OBSERVATION 9: Elite Purple operated under Extractor Foma for at least six cycles.
Six cycles. Over forty years. How on Irk had Purple put up with it for so long? Red never could. Not under someone three full inches his lesser. He would have gone defective and crazy in weeks. Yes, fresh from the smeetery, Purple would've started out shorter than her, but still. He would've been her height or taller for at least two of those cycles. Probably more.
In a blink, Red recalled a purple-eyed smeet towering over him in a pastel room, smelling of sugar and explosives. Not only did Purple bear impressive height, but he'd done so for a long time. Even if he'd plateaued for a few years, his head start would've put Purple well above most of his peers.
OBSERVATION 10: Purple is tall. He has always been tall.
And no Irken in civilized history, ever, got tall by accident. Tallness meant skill. It meant cunning. It meant talent and excellence. Even if one couldn't tell at first glance. After all, Purple had kept up with Red since Invader training started. He'd done it without breaking a sweat, too. Purple was a big sack of snot, but he was a talented sack of snot.
Red's ankle itched. He glanced over his shoulder. Behind the glass, Purple sat on the stool while Extractor Foma rubbed her temples.
For Purple's high caliber, for all his work in the Tallest's service, poor Purple still had to bend to some spindly Irken who couldn't look him in the eye without a hoverchair. And why? Only because everyone taller—everyone who'd deserved the rank—died for her to get it, and Higherarch positions were for life. No wonder Extractor Foma never came out in public. If it were Red, he'd never show his face outside a monitor feed.
But Purple, he'd still been out in the field doing the real work, the respectable work. He'd spent two whole years stealthing in the heart of Irk's enemies, in a ship full of hostile insurgents and no reinforcements for lightyears. For all that, he still had to report and explain himself to someone three inches below him.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.
He remembered the look on Smeet Purple's face after Red had knocked him out of the Fweezie nest. Not just upset, he'd been outraged. Stupefied by the injustice of it all. And he'd had every right to be.
Certain things just weren't done. For instance, smeets—even talented ones—weren't supposed to step out of line or be dumb. Red had never felt dumb back then, or later in his drone days, but dumb people didn't always know they were dumb. And he must have been, at least a little, right? He had to have done something wrong, or he would have grown a lot sooner.
Maybe that's why he'd stayed short for so long. He had to learn better. Purple too, maybe. That's why neither of them got credit for finding the Princess Room.
Red blinked at the simulation pods in the corner far in the back of the Extractor's office. Probably the same training sims mentioned in the syllabus. They had more lights, conduits, and warning labels than the models they'd used in basic, the ones that had been broken by—
I AM ZIM!
A shudder rippled through Red's spine. THAT had been a tall smeet. He'd stood almost a head taller than Purple back then. Weird how there'd been no sign of him in Invader training or even any mention of him in the Irken Elite. Maybe because he'd already outgrown it. Outgrown and outdone everyone in his smeeting year.
"He must be huge by now..."
"Who's huge by now?" Elite Purple stared down at him from the doorway. His gaze flicked between Red, the floor, the prisoners in the walls, his shoes, and to Red again in the space of a blink. "Nevermind. Don't care." His antennae twitched. A bitter acidic scent clung to him.
Red couldn't blame him. In his position, he'd be grouchy too. "How'd it go?"
"How I expected." Purple's flat gaze skimmed over the donut crumbs on Red's mouth. "Have a nice snacktime?"
"Not really. These aren't really my thing. I'm more of a slooshie guy, but they were already here, so…" He stood with a shrug and tilted the box in Purple's direction. "They're still pretty warm. You can have the rest if you want. Some are pizza flavor."
"Obviously. I have receptors, you know," Purple sneered. "And I don't want your gross leftover snacks after you drooled all over them."
He hooked the last three donuts, one to each finger, and shoved them all into his face. They went down in big wet scarfing sloppy bites. No jaw enhancements or anything.
Not that Red was impressed or anything. "You know, when most people say that, they give the snacks back."
"I'm not most people, I'm Purple." With that, he spun on his heel and stomped down the hall. He moved at a clip—a stroll to a walk to a powerwalk just shy of a jog.
The tether shot warning stings through Red's foot as he dashed to catch up. "Wait, where are you going?" Another warning sting. Red winced and sped up. "And why are we rushing? The snack bars are closed by now, you know."
"Not going to snacks."
Purple swung a sharp right, twitched his antennae, dashed down another hall to take three lefts and another right. His tongue swept over his teeth with a huff. This didn't feel like the way they'd come.
"Look, if you're—ow!" Red kicked into a jog and stayed there. The stupid tether usually gave more slack than this, but Purple's sudden moves had put it on high alert. All that time barely sitting in range probably didn't help either. "Will you slow down?! If you're that hungry, there's still a can of Instant Fruit™ in the loft."
Another hard lurch right. "Told you, I'm not going to snacks," Purple said. "And there's three cans left." He plowed through a cluster of Interrogators without a glance. The Interrogators hugged the wall and gave him a wide berth. One shot Red a sympathetic frown.
"Then where ARE we going?"
"You'll see."
Down the hall and to the left, the corridor opened into a modest set of teleportation pads. The thin seams of Purple's PAK glowed as he stepped on and the pad connected. Red squeezed in next to him; these things were never meant for two Irkens but they didn't have much choice. Instantly putting miles of distance between them, even for a second, would mean… Something painful, probably. Best case scenario, they'd miss midterms and need to grow new legs.
"Gimmie the Arena Spire. Floor 28, Section 16-G. Now." With a great heave of his shoulders, Purple flexed his claws and hissed through his teeth. "I need to make something stop being alive."
It took a second to sink in. Red raised his eyebrows. "Wait, we're going IN the Spire? Do we even have clearance—"
The world flared a bleached searing white. The PAK's vents spat out excess heat and all his organs got really weird for half a second. When the spots in Red's eyes faded, he found himself surrounded by blood-pink walls so tall he couldn't find the ceiling.
"—for that?" Apparently, they did. Red's voice echoed through the Devastis Arena Spire's gaping front lobby. Too early (or too late) for the big crowds, the only other ones here were scalpers early to work and gamblers too pathetic to go home. Overlapping scents of thousands of species powered through the antiseptic and carpet cleaner, almost stronger than the stink of Purple's rotten mood. Almost. "I still say we go back to the loft and eat. It's two weeks until the First Quarter tests and maybe you don't care about studying but some of us would rather not flunk out of Invader training."
"Yeah, well, you say a lot of stuff. You can't cram two weeks of stuff in a night. Relax."
For a guy who'd spent his topside life on Foodcourtia or in interrogation modules, Purple navigated the Spire like an old pro. In moments he'd led them past the lobby, up two flights of spiral stairs, and looped around an observation deck. He seemed to know it better than he'd known The Extractor's area. Had he been here before?
Two hallways past the observation deck and a You Must Be ThisTall To Enter sign, they entered a room smaller than the lobby but way too big to be an office. Stats, betting pools, and entry slots streamed across the monitors encircling the room. Couches and accent tables lined the walls, broken up by the occasional advertisement.
A mighty registration counter dominated the place. It had to be five feet tall, bare minimum. Anybody under the height requirement literally couldn't see a Gamemaster without standing on a box.
"Registration ended an hour ago. Slots are all taken, guys." The Gamemaster peered through six unimpressed and unblinking lenses embedded in the metal band around his skull. If he ever had normal eyes, he'd replaced them with the camera mod ages ago. Installation alone had to have cost Red's entire debt twice over. He picked a spot of lint out of his cape's moth fur collar. "Come back tomorrow or schedule ahead in the app. It's just twenty-six monies a week, you can afford that. Probably."
"There, see? It's full. Let's go back." Red pulled Purple's arm. Purple didn't budge. "Come ON. I'm not bombing first exams just because you wanna sulk in the lobby all night."
"So sit by the wall if you wanna study so bad. The sidelines are like four feet away from the pit. Sit out or don't, I don't care. More extra credit for me."
"What's extra credit got to do with—"
"Shut up, I'm busy."
Purple groped through his PAK with more clinking, clattering, and weird thumps than an Elite's PAK ought to have. With a smirk, he pulled out a bowl of steaming nachos. The genuine Solo Supreme came with three varieties of cheeses, six styles of exotic chips, and a divot of spicy dip on the side, all contained in an edible bowl the size of a Planet Jacker helmet. No fancier than average snack trough stuff, but nothing to dismiss either.
Slowly, he slid it across the desk. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you. When did you say MY slot was?"
The Gamemaster's cameras brightened, all roses and red carpets. "As I said, sir, your slot starts in six… well, five, now. The pit's ready and waiting to go." With a gesture, a holographic grid spread beneath his hands. His finger hovered over the tile in the upper-left corner. "But you'll have to rush, and I'm afraid it's still early for the night. It's mostly camera spectators for this one. Are you sure you wouldn't rather have the fourth or fifth slot? It's Primetime, big audience there."
Red flattened his antennae, caught between complaining about the epic nachos Purple apparently had the whole time and the fact that he still had to waste his evening in an arena brawl whether he wanted to or not. As if he could study in the middle of a pit, much less with— wait. Did that GM mention cameras?
"Is this match going to the broadcasts?" Red frowned down at his wrinkled uniform.
A long gooey thread of cheese dripped into the Game Master's mouth. "Uh. Obviously? It's a cultural institution, like my glorious voice. If you don't know that, maybe you DO need to study, whatsyername."
"It's Red," said Red. "And it's gonna be doubles." He sighed. "I guess."
"Doubles?" All seven feet of the G.M. sat up in full. The camera apertures in his head all blinked at once. He smoothed the fur on his cape collar, trying (and failing) to keep nacho cheese out of it. "Hm, that is new. We like a gimmick out here. Doubles… I love it."
At least somebody here did.
The G.M.'s long fingers tapped a monitor and skimmed through the I.D. numbers. "Well, looks like your liability paperwork's all taken care of. Yeah, there you are. Callsigns Red and Purple."
"Are you sure you don't mean…" Red snickered under his breath. "Red and PLURPLE?"
Purple bared his teeth in a vicious snarl.
The Game Master shrugged. "Purple, Plurple. Clammada, clamato. Seriously, you sure you don't want slot five? It's a real squelcher tonight."
"No. First slot. I'm not waiting."
"Okay, but this thing doesn't even talk. It's not that fun…"
"I don't need it to talk, I NEED it to stop being alive. It's FINE. Whatever arena settings are fine. Just…" Purple muttered under his breath and sighed. "Just gimme a plasma ax and—"
"Uh-uh, now that's a non-starter, Mr. Elite Purple." The G.M. puffed his nacho-stained cape with a flourish. "What do you think this is, some back alley pit fight? This is Devastis, sir. We have rules. Shock spears only."
Purple threw his arms into the air. "SERIOUSLY?! Why does everything happen to me? Is this some kind of newbie rule or can we… you know…" He waggled his brow. "Arrange for something cooler? Axes, chainsaws, a steel chair?"
"Everybody gets spears in the Spire, drones to the Admins. Deal with it or don't." The Game Master took a wet sloppy bite of nachos. "Oh, looks like it's that time. Fight starts in ten!"
Hadn't he said six before? "Ten minutes?" That barely gave Red time to shine his boots, much less stretch to prep for an arena fight. He looked around for a reflective surface. Did his antennae look weird? Sometimes it bent funny after a nap.
"Nah."
Red smiled.
"Ten seconds."
Their PAKs lit up as the teleporter connected.
"Have a good show. Try not to die too fast, mmkay?"
The ground dropped out.
Three teleporter trips in the last two hours. Amazing that he hadn't puked up the few snacks in his stomach. Red staggered on his feet, squinting into the rows of a stadium.
Five layers of seats rose from the ground to the roof, filtered dusty pink behind the arena glass. A few Irkens hovered ringside, close enough to see their faces peering at him with dull interest. Nobody he recognized, but Red still wished he could have cleaned up first.
The shatterproof glass dome arched high above their heads, orbited on all sides by a rainbow of flashing lights and stats and advertisements. The whole thing kind of reminded him of his old job as a mechanic drone, when he lived inside a slot machine for a year. Beneath his feet, blue sand pulsed in time with the thrashing bass beat. A Game Master's voice crowded above it, the words muffled behind the glass.
Red huffed under his breath. "Let's wrap this up quick, Purple. I've got stuff to do."
"Yeah, whatever. Stick to the sidelines and do your homework." Purple walked along the weapons queue, examining the selection of shock spears. He chose the one with the curved serrated tip, twirled it in his hands, and banged it in time with the beat. "Let the pro talent work. You'd just get in the way." He shot Red a punchable smirk.
Whatever. Serrated blades were for brutes and weirdos anyway. Red snatched a longtip: simple, sturdy, and stabby with a generous reach to put distance between himself and the enemy. It'd worked well for him in training modules; no reason it couldn't work here. "What talent? All I see here is you."
Purple stuck out his tongue. The bruise matched his eyes. "Jealousy just makes you uglier."
The arena lights went blue, swirling and spinning along the sides of the dome. Outside, the bass thumped faster as the Game Master's voice boomed through the speakers. " GET READY TO GET SOME, SOLDIERS! HERE SHE COMES!"
"About time." Purple slouched low at the ready, legs bouncing, claws flexing around the spear. Stadium lights gleamed across his eyes as he licked the edge of his grin. The stress stink haunting him all afternoon evaporated completely. He stood like a seasoned fleet cruiser with brand new cannons: no flinch, no falter.
Indeed, the Elite looked downright competent. If it was a bluff, Red had to admit it was a good one.
Smoke filtered into the arena, gray clouds puffing at their boots. The real thing—no dry ice or vapor, just good old fire and ash and noxious gasses. A lesser mammal would suffocate in minutes. Something spat and crackled like fryer grease. A fat rope of flesh snaked through the haze, and the fryer crackle popped so loud Red felt it in his spiracles.
"AND HERE SHE IS! Irkens of Devastis, viewers at home, pirates on satellite—yes, we see you—please give a big HELLO to a special big old girl! All the way from Sector 4513, you know her! You love her! Give it up for CODENAME AN-GE-LAAAAA!"
The two-dozen Irkens in the audience politely golf-clapped. One guy in the back said "woo".
Red blinked. The splort kinda name is 'Angela'? It sounded like a foreign desert. He turned to ask Purple for some sort of game plan.
Purple's silhouette already dashed through smoke trails several feet away. Of course.
A great ugly hose of a creature rose from the haze, up and up and up until Red had to tilt his neck. Swirls of ash and smoke dripped between seven rows of jagged little teeth centered in a wicked ring of a mouth. Despite the ashy debris, the oilslick skin glistened. Angela had been eating well.
Red stepped back. Angela reared and dove for him.
Instinctively, he lunged out of range. Beneath his PAK, the metal legs flexed, ready to catch the landing and push Red into a second jump.
The hatch didn't open. He crashed hard onto the concrete. The creature perked and changed directions.
Where were the PAK legs? Red strained. His hatches strained and relaxed with a little "nuh-uh" beep. Disabled. When the G.M. said shock spears only, he'd meant it. Great.
Lightly as possible, Red scattered backward, trying to catch some flash of movement in the smoke. Nothing he could see so far; she hadn't followed him. Not yet, at least.
Red's chest monitor glowed. A chipper voice in his brain (in his PAK?) chimed the first three notes of Irk's anthem. Pop quiz, Elite! Please identify species!
What, now? They weren't even on duty! Shouldn't field tests happen on the field, off-planet or something?
She began to turn for him again. Red threw a fistful of gravel behind her. The creature known as Angela screeched and followed it.
Then again, an enemy threat was an enemy threat, no matter the planet.
Please identify species. Unvoiced answers will be considered an errored response. Respond in the next thirty seconds.
"I heard you the first time, relax!"
Too loud. Coils breached over the smoke clouds. Red skittered away from the gleam of Angela teeth as fast as he could while keeping her in sight. Eyes watering in the smoke, he scanned what little of the creature he could see.
Okay. No legs. No eyes. Long, but not tall. Circular mouth and teeth for days. Shiny skin. Spewing smoke and gross stuff could apply to a bunch of species, but if he had to guess (and he did)…
"Some kinda fire leech?" he whispered.
The monitor chimed happily. Correct! Please identify native planet.
Red rolled and dodged a fat sweep of muscle. "Friggin… um…" Sector 4513, The G.M. had said. That sector had those people made of smoke or whatever. "Uhhhh, Quellazaire!"
Well done, Elite e82d10! Twenty extra credits have been applied to your score.
Not bad, actually.
On the farther side of the arena, Purple cackled at the top of his lungs, coughed, and laughed again. His spear chopped through the smoke as it swung down to stab the leech's rear. As the ropes of Angela muscle turned left, Red ran right, lashing and stabbing at her shiny hide.
Angela paused, unsure of which Irken to target. In that sliver of time, they struck. Red jabbed the thrashing rear coils while Purple went for the neck and the chest. Gradually, they fell into a sloppy rhythm, loose enough to break predictable patterns, smooth enough to still work in tandem.
If she gnashed at Purple on the left, Red struck right. She twisted right, Purple stabbed left. They circled and swooped her. They dashed and slashed, switching places by the second as they ducked and rolled under the thrashing coils of muscle and fat. Direction matched for direction. Hit for hit.
Too bad none of Red's hits had actually connected yet. Not enough to matter. The spear blade jabbed through the smoke to hit something thick and gooey. It felt like trying to stab a puddle of jelly. Some sort of membrane, obviously, but there had to be some way through it.
Did Purple know? Had any of his hits connected?
For a moment, the walls of smoke parted and Red saw him. All smiles, Purple ducked and dodged and swiped and back-rolled around Angela's attacks like an old arena pro. Maybe he was.
He'd been in the pit fights as a smeet and lived to whine about it. That had to count for something. And they had pit fights all over Irken territory, Foodcourtia included, so maybe Purple had never stopped. His melee skills had stayed sharp. He'd breezed through the area rules like he'd heard them a million times, and had already known the fastest way to the registration desk and how to bribe the G.M.
With dozens (hundreds?) of off-worlder fights under his boot, perhaps attack plans came second nature to him now. Perhaps what Red saw now was the manifestation of years—decades!—of experience and talent coming to a head. Indeed, nobody that tall could be dumb. What labyrinths of strategic brilliance did Purple harbor under his PAK?
Because Red really wanted to get in on it.
The leech's tail slammed the back of Red's legs.
Like, now.
Catching himself on his hands, he stumbled backward in a clumsy half-run. A fresh jet of smoke shot into his face. He hacked and coughed as his body tried to compensate for the PAK's clogged filters. Angela roared, and Red caught a whiff of Irken blood. Maybe theirs, maybe the last guy she'd met down here.
Rotten attitude or not, Purple couldn't drag Red in here and hoard the whole battle plan. The least he could do was fill him in.
"Hey." Red vaulted over a squiggling mass of mucus and muscles and ducked a rope of flesh coming at his starboard. He caught up to Purple's silhouette. "Hey! What's our plan here?"
Purple's face broke through the smoke, antennae twitching blind and rapid. He tilted his head and laughed. "Uh, kill it until it stops moving? Obviously?"
A coil of leech muscle swung for them. Purple jabbed his spear upwards. One hard solid thrust.
The membrane popped. Leech goo splashed the floor with a violent hiss.
"It's an arena monster-type guy, what's there to plan?" Purple blinked at the sizzling end of his spear tip. The blade bubbled and drooled strings of liquid metal as it dissolved. Electric components fizzled and died. In seconds, he held a useless iron stick. "How about that? Acid slime."
Every single benefit of the doubt dropped into the pit of Red's spooch. Purple didn't have a brilliant battle strat. He didn't even have a mediocre battle strat.
That idiot had walked in blind. And like a bigger idiot, Red had followed him.
Angela flexed in a great shudder of muscle that ran from head to tail. When she growled, the arena floor vibrated beneath Red's boots. He looked at the leech. He looked at Purple. Screw co-battles. If this moron wanted to die here, he could do it on his own. Red had exams to pass.
This thing didn't have eyes, and used vibrations to see, right? If he wanted to hide, Red needed the right camouflage. Lucky him, the arena came equipped with plenty to spare. Red pressed against the arena wall. It pulsed and throbbed in time to the battle music outside the dome. Just enough to mask Red's footsteps as he made himself scarce.
Angela reared high, shifting her coils across the ground, searching for movement. She didn't have to search long.
In the north of the area, Purple hovered over the little armory. He pawed through the supply of spears, letting all the junk he didn't want fall to the floor in bangs and clatters.
Red flinched. Irk's sake, just wear a dinner bell while you're at it.
The leech swung with a hungry roar and thundered past Red like a wet slimy subway train, little flecks of acid and slime splattering his pants.
Purple held up two scimitar-curved short spears above his head with a silly little grin.
The smoke thickened around him.
Purple's antennae perked. He looked up.
Too late.
The leach's jaws unhinged and she dove and there Purple stood in the center: a tall and slender shadow against a bright starburst of orange throat and white teeth. Before Red could call out to him or look away or run or do anything, the leech's mouth clamped over Purple.
She ate him without leaving so much as a drop of blood. And that was that. One of Irk's rising stars snuffed out in a heartbeat.
Red slumped against the wall. He'd seen it coming. What else could anyone expect, running in with no plan, no backup, no nothing but some stupid urge to burn off steam? Red had known how this would end, but now that it had, it… it didn't matter. His insides twisted up all the same, and he didn't know why.
A lesser species may have called the feeling "pity", but no respectable Irken would. It was something greater, deeper than pity. Loss, perhaps. The loss, Red supposed, of military potential. Purple could have done Irk so much good if only he'd thought for two seconds. That had to be it.
Whatever it was, it froze Red on the spot. He stood, staring up and up at Angela roaring in victorious dinnertime. She rose above the smoke, throat twitching as she swallowed. Or tried to.
The lump stopped midway. It wriggled. Then it thrashed.
Angela slumped and tilted her head. If leeches could frown, she likely would have. She wheezed and coughed a smokeless cough.
Slowly, Red's eye journeyed from the lump to a long shiny thread of liquid dripping from Angela's neck. It hung viscous and thick, swinging like a pendulum as the creature began to sway.
In all his years revolving through dozens of planets, snack lines, training pods, battlegrounds, fleet formations, and anywhere else Irk's finest gathered together, Red had learned how to observe. From those observations, he's learned that the most dangerous Irkens acted one of two ways: barbed wires or laser beams. They struck clean, deadly, and precise, or else lacerated anything that dared come within range.
But not Purple.
The leech split in half. With a flash of metal, she tore in a shower of slime and entrails and smoke. Both halves thudded to the ground, and out he jumped. Six foot nine and glistening like a new smeet in the viscera.
Elite Purple was a landmine. Pure unfiltered violence with a 99.9% kill rate.
Covered from antennae to boot heel in guts and slime, he wiped the sinew from his eyes and spat out a tooth. Purple whipped Angela's small intestine around his neck like a soggy scarf and laughed.
It was, to Red's incredible outrage, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
Purple scampered to Red's side, intestine scarf dragging through the sand. He laughed again and punched Red in the bicep. "That was fun! You wanna go again tomorrow?"
Exams were coming up. Red had to study tomorrow. He also had to check his squad's injuries and scores to make sure they didn't drag down the average, and The Lenient still needed repairs. Tomorrow's schedule was maxed out. He didn't have time to waste fooling around in the arena.
Red's gauntlet blinked. His stats had updated.
KILL COUNT: 1
EXTRA CREDIT POINTS: 70
He scrolled down.
VICTOR SPOILS: 900 MONIES + 100 MONIES AUDIENCE RECEPTION BONUS.
Red peered over his shoulder. Dozens of Irkens pressed against the dome glass, staring back. He waved to them, and they applauded.
Nobody had ever applauded him before. It felt weird. Kind of like how being tethered to a landmine was weird.
But weird didn't mean bad. Not always.
"Tomorrow? Uh… yeah." Red smiled. "Yeah, that sounds good."