As promised, Celeste's ship awaited her at its original landing spot: the muddy bed of an old, dried-out lake in the middle of the nature preserve. Glancing at her watch – nine thirty – Nikki saw she had half an hour to spare, so she dropped the various backpacks and duffel bags she'd been lugging and took a breather. So people actually do this 'hiking' thing for the lulz? Kill me already! She'd changed into fresh clothes – cargo shorts and a baggy sweater – but she was so drenched in sweat she might as well have kept her blood-'n-guts soaked originals.

Nikki sipped from a water bottle and took a moment to ogle the ship. She'd originally classified it as a saucer-shape, but now that it was still and upright she noted that it took on a sleeker figure, tapering at its front and back like a football with two sickle-shaped wings thrusting forward from the rear engines. It looks a bit like her, Nikki smiled, noting that it even shared its owner's icy-blue paint with a white dome.

Celeste had not been idle while she'd been gone. The ship was parked as close to the green canopy as possible and large, leafy branches had been hacked down and leaned against the ship's exposed side to camouflage it from any passing planes or helicopters. Once Nikki trotted close enough, the drawbridge lowered to admit her. She stepped forward cautiously, a little nervous of what mood she might find the alien, and a little puzzled by the sound of pop music coming from within.

Help me if you can, I'm feelin' down,
and I do appreciate you bein' round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground.
Won't you please, please help me?

Inside, the ship was dark as a movie theatre, but by the illumination of the control console she could make out her rescuer in her pilot seat. Celeste's monitors were split into sub-windows displaying Earth TV news reports and radio broadcasts. Is she listening to The Beatles? Nikki shook her head at this poor introduction to human culture. I've gotta point her to real classics. A list of prolific video game composers was already filling her head: Jun Senoue, Nobuo Uematsu; maybe some Crush 40 if she likes butt-rock.

Celeste did not acknowledge her guest but Nikki wasn't surprised. She recognized the alien's posture: back hunched, leaning forward in her seat with eyes narrowed and lips pursed. It was the same position Nikki assumed whenever she became mesmerized by a really intense video game. It wasn't the Earth broadcasts that held her interest, however. Tiptoeing closer, Nikki saw that the object of the alien's focus was a silver sphere in her hand, about the size of an apple and projecting ghostly images into the air. Flicking two fingers from side to side, Celeste advanced the pictures: a jagged mountain range, a snow-covered field, and then an orbital photograph of a planet frosted with white clouds. The alien lingered on this visual and a look of profound sadness claimed her face. Her fingers stretched out, not to advance the image, but to try and grasp the phantom projection, to touch it.

Nikki felt an overwhelming sense of intrusion. I shouldn't be seeing this. She was about to back down the boarding ramp and make a show of stomping up loudly as warning when her head bonked into something metallic.

"Kos kan, Nikkeeee-da." Nikki yelped at the camera robot, which mirrored her startled leap back, blue lens wide in surprise. "Ki-Celeste, the ambassador has arrived."

Blabbermouth!

"Nicole?" The blue alien straightened to her feet, cutting the hologram and stuffing the projector sphere into a drawer. "You returned." It was hard to miss the shock in her voice.

"Well, yeah. I said I would." Her eyes roved to the console drawer Celeste had just secured. "Was that your home plan- ?" The alien took a side step and blocked the view with her body.

"I was monitoring your people's audio-visual transmissions to assess the situation," she explained.

"Oh." Nikki would freely admit she had the social savvy of a peanut, but even she knew when a topic was being placed off-limits. The alien soldier had her guard up thanks to this surprise visit, and Nikki hunted for some words that would ease the tension. "Um, how's your shoulder?"

"Functional."

Dead end on that. Glancing around, Nikki noticed the alien rifle propped by the loading ramp along with a stack of field equipment. "Sorry I took so long. I guess you've been getting ready to go on your own."

"Yes." The longer they stared at each other, the more the alien's face grew into a frown. "Your hair," she said suddenly. "Why do you style it that way?"

My hair? Nikki's fingers went to her simple bob. "I dunno, I think I've always just cut it short. Easier to handle, I guess." Maybe this was her chance. "Have you seen aliens with this same cut?"

Celeste chose not to respond. Instead, she directed her steely gaze at the camera robot, which zipped to its master's side on a roof-mounted rail track. As soon as it was in range, the alien seized its bowling pin body like she meant to wring its neck.

"Cogni, you update me after she boards? I ordered you to sweep a perimeter of 200 cha. Two-zero-zero!"

"Hey, command was confirmed," the robot protested. Now that it was configured to English, Nikki could identify the lazy, feminine drawl to its voice, not unlike the airhead valley girls who always argued in the coffee shop. "I set perimeter scanners to a whole 2.00 cha. Two-point-zero-ze-" Cogni stopped itself, and Nikki saw its eye open in epiphany the same way her coffee shop bimbos drew back when she explained how to make proper change. "Ohhh. Decimal point. Sorry, Ki-Celeste."

Celeste swatted it with her fist anyhow. The robot squeaked and let its body hang limp on its joint arm as it rolled away like a scolded puppy.

"I apologize. When a ship's cognition is not regularly reformatted it tends to develop … quirks."

"Quirks," Nikki repeated. Alone in a corner, Cogni seemed to forget its scolding and began bobbing its camera body to the rhythm of an internal music track. Nikki cleared her throat and tried to remember how the droid had first addressed her.

"Um … kos kan, Celeste? That's 'hello' or 'welcome', right?"

Alien eyebrows rose in surprise. "You learn quickly. 'You are welcome here' would be the most apt translation. I would, however, urge you to avoid modeling your dialect after malfunctioning cognitions!" Little Cogni went rigid, bracing for another swat. Celeste explained. "Among friends and equals, we say Kos kan. In formal meetings between strangers or separate castes, the full address is used: Kosoko kangai."

"Oh," Nikki nodded, a little crestfallen at the gap Celeste had planted between them. Her blue face was all business, the cheerful giggles of last night seemingly an illusion. Dumbass! Just because you played some stupid math games did you really think you'd be all buddy-buddy?

"Well then, kosoko kangai na Earth, Sergeant Luvendass."

Celeste quirked an eye at her successful use of articles. "Kosoko kangai na Shikai-to Subasa, Ambassador. Welcome aboard The Wraith's Wings."

The space-warrior spread her arms and gestured to the ship; the lighting rose momentarily and various compartments and panels clicked their hinges like a cast of mechanical crabs snapping their pincers. The flourish felt like a show of power: Observe all the little traps and tricks at my disposal, should you try anything. Nikki tried to keep her excitement from showing.

"It's pretty cool. I mean, impressive," she added, seeing Celeste's puzzled frown. Gotta stay away from non-literal expressions. "I uh, noticed all the branches you cut down. Is you cloaking device broken?"

"Visual refraction systems were banned across the Confederacy after the Telos IV incident, where a civilian vessel collided with a military spy ship and toppled a skyscraper. They are now exclusively used by criminals and mercenaries." Then she muttered something like 'If they can afford them.'

Nikki scratched her neck sheepishly; all this small talk only seemed to irritate the alien. Better stick to business, then. "So, here's your scanner, HEY!" Cogni had zipped into her face again, extending two mini-pincers from its body to snatch up the scanner and rip into it like a tin can. The droid fished through wires and circuitry for a flat disc, which it popped into an underbelly mouth compartment. A disc drive? "That thing just –"

"Cogni is assimilating the visual records in the memory unit," Celeste stated. "The equipment is of no concern. Merely a disposable model marketed for tourists and amateur photo-artists." Those judgmental eyebrows lifted again. Did you really think I would send you off with vital alien technology?

Cogni twitched and clicked its underside mouth like it was chewing though a piece of gristle. Its lens popped to green - success! - then it rode its roof-mounted rails to display the findings from the best angle.

A ghostly green replica of the cruiser cargo bay launched into the air. It was hard for Nikki to get a sense of what the room would look like properly – it was cavernous, with various containers and crates scattered by the crash, but the majority of the wall space was taken up by twelve standing cylinders with glass casing around their middle. Celeste strode into the projection like she was live at the scene, gesturing with her arms to manipulate her surroundings: magnifying select objects and rotating for angles.

It was the twelve cylinders that held her interest, each in a varying state of disrepair. On some, the inside glass had been sprayed with slime like they were microwave ovens whose contents had burst. Several were cracked and shattered, and one had opened properly on its hinges to reveal a padded interior like a cushioned container. Or a cage, Nikki realized.

"Five," Celeste murmured to herself. The count of the shattered or opened tubes. "I thank you for your assistance, Ambassador. With this intelligence I'm able to update the threat level to your planet."

"So we're not doomed?"

"No, your planet is still very much lost." Seeing her whimper, Celeste added, "But the odds have improved in your favour. Nicole, as representative of Earth, you have a right to know the threat your planet faces. Cogni: display mission datatracks."

The little camera swiveled to project a new hologram into the center of the ship, and the sight made Nikki yelp.

"This is the pilot of the downed ship. This is Rondarr."

A hulking lizard-man roared and snarled at her in a looped animation. Whereas Celeste's species seemed mostly human, this Rondarr looked like a combination of reptiles grafted into a hunchbacked, bipedal form. He supported himself on velociraptor legs with meaty thighs, agile calves and sickle talons. His alligator tail swung like a thick club, and each digit of his bony hands brandished a black claw like a meat hook. His short-snouted iguana head was molded into a permanently devious grin, forked tongue flicking like a whip. He wore simple body armor with shoulder pauldrons and a metallic kilt; otherwise, the brown scales of his body served as a natural plating. This was clearly a predator species – a lifeform evolved to rip, rend and tear whatever it came across.

"Rondarr is a Slovarian hunter wanted in five systems for numerous trafficking offenses: transporting restricted narcotics; theft of endangered plant life. He takes personal delight, however, in hunting and selling protected species." Celeste's fist clenched. "Including sentient races."

Nikki swallowed. "You mean he's a slave trader?"

Celeste allowed herself a sadistic grin. "He was." She waved at Cogni to advance the display, running through a holo-slideshow of the alien lizard, his weapons and his ship. "I have pursued Rondarr on several occasions but he has eluded me persistently. The Confederacy has placed a substantial bounty for his arrest – captured live or terminated. I'm pleased to say I fulfilled the latter."

"But there's his cargo."

Celeste nodded, pleased she could follow her train of thought. "While Rondarr has never played an active role in galactic conflicts, his smuggling has provided warlords and criminal syndicates with the means to engage in biological warfare against innocent systems. After interrogating his contacts, I learned that Rondarr's latest shipment had the capacity to cleanse an entire planet."

Cogni's lens projected the skinless dog from last night. "He was transporting garduk."

Assuming the display was life-size, this new alien had the height and shape of a greyhound dog – a wide, barrel chest tapering into a bony pelvis and stick legs. Its skull was all jaw, with teeth so long its lips couldn't curl around the two rows of spikes. If it had ears or eyes, they were too beady to make out. Another predator species, this one centered on its gullet. Nikki's skin crawled just looking at the hologram.

"Garduk are native to the Sho-Tan system and have a unique reproductive method that involves laying eggs upon large, herbivorous co-species." Celeste played her a demonstrative video of a large spider-alien covered in sticky pustules. Each pimple ruptured in quick succession and the space arachnid swiftly became a meal to the tiny dog monsters bursting from their egg sacs. Nikki's stomach churned. Glad I skipped breakfast.

"In their natural ecosystem, garduk are common prey for several tertiary predators that have adapted to the venom in their bloodstream. When introduced to new ecosystems without such predatory checks, they have decimated entire systems."

Cogni clicked over to an alien landscape and Nikki gasped. Shattered cityscapes, all rubble and smoke; open grasslands reduced to ash, and everywhere hordes of the skinless dogs surging through the wastelands like a flood tide. Now the hologram zoomed out to an orbital schematic of the planet, with red patches on the continents displaying the location of the invasive species. The infected sites spread across the globe like a blood stain.

"The sale and ownership of garduk is among the most reprehensible crimes in the Confederacy, and will earn sentencing equivalent to genocide."

"Is that – I mean, that's gonna be Earth."

"Not if we act quickly. Garduk must fully mature before they are able to reproduce. What you saw last night was an infant, small and built for rapid movement. In this stage, a garduk seeks out fresh hunting grounds and grows strong devouring small, foraging species." Rats and mice, Nikki decided. "When they have consumed sufficiently, they pupate."

So they're like pokemon. "How long until they evolve?" Nikki asked. Cogni took the lead on her answer.

"Ooh! Checking growth rates against Earth time units aaaaand … 500 planetary cycles."

Nikki exhaled. Almost two years. "We're good."

Celeste scowled and tapped at the robot's casing. Cogni froze, wide-eyed.

"Ohhh, right. Decimal point. Five cycles."

It took a tremendous amount of willpower not to bang her head against the wall. "Lemmie guess, they're also self-impregnating hermaphrodites, they lay dozens of eggs at a time and they all hatch in under a day?"

Cogni jolted back and turned to her captain. "She is a remarkable guesser."

"Yeah, more like remarkably pessimistic." Okay, they needed a game plan. "You already shot one on the beach so we just need to track the last four."

"I will track the remaining four," Celeste stated. "You will notify your world government of the threat and position your security forces accordingly. You and I have no further business here."

Again with trying to dump her! "I can just text my bosses, and they'll take things from there," Nikki countered. "Besides, they already gave me orders that I should personally escort you."

"No," the alien repeated, seemingly nursing a migraine. "I cannot be with you. I cannot keep remembering –" Again, she stopped herself. Calmed herself with deep breaths. "I hunt better alone."

"But I can show you around this place! Look, I even brought all this stuff to help you out!"

Half mad, half upset, she tossed her knapsacks across the ship at Celeste, who seemed genuinely taken aback. "You brought me -?" As she unzipped and examined the contents, Nikki explained each gift.

"I brought some of my spare clothes you could wear to blend in. Oh, and I bought all this makeup and lipstick too since, y'know, blue skin and all that. Plus you can use the bags to store all your gear!"

Celeste frowned over one backpack, cold to the touch and with a strange rubber hose spouting from its compartment. "What is this?"

"It's called a camelback," Nikki explained. "You fill them up with water so you can drink on long hikes. I filled that up with ice. I thought you'd want something to keep you cool outside the ship. You're a cold weather species, right?"

There was no response. Celeste's lips parted as though to reply, but her words stuck in her throat. Very suddenly she stepped away, hiding her face and hugging the camelback to her chest like it was a precious gift.

"This is … remarkably considerate of you," she said after a pause. "I am … unused to this level of hospitality in my travels. Thank you."

Nikki wasn't quite sure what to say. "Um, you're welcome, I guess. I mean, I should really be the one thanking you. You came here to save us."

"Save you?" Something between a sob and a laugh choked from Celeste's throat. "I came to this system to collect blood money! My actions have endangered your entire world! Don't you realize what I am?" All around them, the ship's compartments began rattling with the alien's heightened state. Cogni retreated to a corner and whimpered. The loading ramp shut, sealing Nikki in the darkness.

"I am no soldier; I belong to no army. I fight for no planet, no code; no cause except my own."

The click of alien heels stopped before her and yellow eyes like lamplights bent towards her face. Nikki was caught between those piercing eyes and decoding the riddle. "Wait, you're saying … you're a bounty hunter?"

A predatory chuckle. "I am the scourge they call the Koru-Shi –"

"THAT'S AWESOME!"

A clatter like dozens of storage closets spilling their contents rattled the ship. The lighting rose and Celeste backed away, perplexed.

"What?"

"You're a bounty hunter!" Nikki's heart was squealing like super-heated tea kettle. "That's so much cooler than a galactic soldier! Are you in a guild? Freelancer?"

Celeste kept backpedalling like an overwhelmed guest at a comic convention. "I … don't understand. Your people, you revere bounty hunters?"

"Of course we do! I mean, they're only the most kick-ass characters ever! Boba Fett, Samus Aran; heck, even the weaboos have Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Bounty hunters are just so awesome!"

The alien needed a moment to process all this gushing. "I see." She quickly coughed and regained her composure. "We should not delay further. I will change my wardrobe and we can prepare our hunt. I assume you will assist me in navigating your planet?"

"Heck, yeah!"

Then she smiled, and a tiny peal of that beautiful laughter escaped her lips. "Thank you, Nicole."

Celeste took the bag of clothes to a far corner of the ship; probably the spot where she stored her own wardrobe because a privacy screen rose from the floor to allow her some modesty. Again, Nikki wondered about the second-rate nature of the technology on the ship. Not very convenient; I mean, it's just a flat screen so if you watched from the right angle you could still see behind. Plus it's more of a frosted glass than a solid wall so you can still see shadows behind. Oh god, should I tell her I can totally see -

Fwump. The dress over Celeste's silhouette hit the floor. Nikki's jaw followed soon after. Oh wow...

The hourglass outline stretched its arms above its head, happy to be free of the restricting fabric. "Nicole, could you begin packing the supplies by the ramp?"

Nikki jolted back to life. "Hey, um … I'm gonna start p-packing this st-stuff by the ramp."

"Only the small containers," Celeste called. "I will handle the munitions."

"Uh huh," Nikki nodded, trying to dispel the image of alien curves bending to sort through her clothes. "Yeah, don't wanna handle that bombshell. I mean, bombs. I mean –" She shut up and got to work. Cogni was happy to assist with the sorting, flashing a red lens whenever her hands drew near something that could explode, and green for harmless goods. Soon, a pair of tapping heels joined them.

"Will this suffice as a disguise?" Nikki turned and had to grab her glasses to keep them from dropping.

Ever since she'd started shopping for her own clothes, Nikki had always dressed herself several sizes too big. She'd never understood the appeal of tight-fitting clothes; in her mind, skinny jeans and yoga pants continued the sad oppression of females dating back to corsets and bodices (and made everyone laugh at her flabby gut and call her "muffin top"). She preferred the anonymity of bulky shirts, the freedom of loose, baggy pants and the absence of fabric wedged up her butt-crack. She refused to play the popular girl game of shrink-wrapping her body for fashion.

Looking at Celeste made her reconsider. Is that what I could look like? The alien modeled a pair of her dark jeans and a warm, purple turtleneck that fit her curvaceous body like a second skin; not a wrinkle or crease to be seen. She was fully clothed but Nikki felt like she was getting the same eyeful as that naked silhouette behind the screen.

Besides the clothes, Celeste had painted over her face with pale makeup and cherry lipstick; the smear lines were probably obvious to a trained fashionista, but combined with her white hair and golden eyes it gave her the look of a delicate China doll. Black gloves concealed her hands where makeup wouldn't do, and her horns and hair were artfully tucked into an oversized gray beanie cap. She looked like a paperboy from a 1920s period movie.

A drop-dead gorgeous paperboy.

"I will need to use my own footwear," Celeste noted, lifting a leg to show the thigh-high boots tucked under her jeans. Made sense. The flats of her feet were oddly small, like she was permanently standing on her toes or from a culture that practiced foot binding. "Will this suffice otherwise?"

"I uh, I mean uh…" Nikki shut her mouth and settled for a quick nod.

The hike from the landing site to the nature preserve's parking lot took up precious time, but Nikki had a surprise that would guarantee speedy passage from here on.

"We call this vehicle a motorcycle. It's pretty dangerous, but it's fast."

"How quaint! I have always wanted to ride an internal combustion vehicle."

"Nothing quaint about this," Nikki said, puffing her chest. "Here on Earth, only the most dangerous, gutsiest road warriors dare to ride motorcycles. This is a real woman's transport!"

She hoped Celeste was convinced. The vehicle she'd rented this morning was, in fact, a vespa – a little two-wheeled scooter with wide, flat panels on which to park your feet, a windshield and side-mirrors for added safety, and a dorky basket behind the seat for storing cargo. Instead of hunching over the handlebars like a crotch rocket or leaning back into the saddle like a road hog, you rode with your back straight and legs tucked together like a proper lady. As far as badass transportation was concerned, vespas ranked a step above Baby's First Big-Wheel Tricycle, but just barely.

It was also pink. Cheapest model.

As they loaded up the bags, Nikki froze with a sudden panic. Celeste would be sitting right behind her; she'd have to hold on to something to keep steady! Her brain overheated with thoughts of the hunter's hands hugging her hips, or wrapping around her waist!

"All set." The alien woman mounted up behind her, gripping the leather seat under her bottom.

Oh. A bitter pang fizzled through Nikki's chest. Relief, or disappointment, she couldn't say.

"Well, um, hold on t'your horns, cause we're in for a wild ride!" Nikki squeezed the handlebars, floored the gas pedal and sent them flying towards Glenberry at a radical, rebellious 10 mph. Putt-putt-putt-putt-putt. A group of marathon cyclists waved as they pedaled past the turtle-bike.

Nikki's inner voice slapped its forehead. Super lame, muffin top!

"Does this handlebar adjust the drive setting?" Nikki squeaked as a gloved hand stretched over her own and pulled at the bike's gear shift. The little vespa rocketed forward and momentum plowed Nikki back into a soft alien chest. Act cool! Calm blue ocean, calm blue –

Blue was not a good colour to calm herself with Celeste so close.

Focus on the job, she reminded herself. A real life NPC fetch quest: track and eliminate four hostile enemies somewhere on the map, and I'm the navigator. No sweat; they were dumb alien animals. Not like they had to deal with anything crafty or clever like that dead lizard guy. Behind her, Celeste seemed calm enough, humming the human radio tunes her ship had intercepted. Nikki filled the lyrics in her head.

Help me if you can, I'm feelin' down,
and I do appreciate you bein' round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground…

…Won't you please, please help me?

The flick of a curved, reptilian talon dismissed the alien music and returned the cramped ship to a dark and silent cavern. Those suited to night vision would see the rise and fall of hulking scales and the snort of reptilian nostrils, all moving in time to the angry breathing of a beast like a great dragon.

Rondarr dragged his talons through the metal armrests of his seat. Barely a cycle and he'd already torn past the leather and dug deep gouges into the frame. The rational part of his brain scolded him for damaging the property, but the predator at his core needed something to claw at, something to throttle. Besides, a few scratches meant nothing compared to last night's damages. Loathe as he was to admit, that blasted tendricite had pulled off a surprise attack worthy of the greatest Slovarian hunters: orbiting close to the planet's satellite to keep off his scanners, then firing incinerator-class torpedoes that would trace his flight path no matter how erratic. Surprise the prey, corner it; leave no chance to run. Not bad for a plant eater.

Bad enough she'd forced him to fall back on an old tactic of his reptilian heritage: tear off a limb as distraction to save the whole. Eject the cargo hold and let the main cockpit escape. Now here he was, skulking in the middle of an alien world with half a ship, cloaking field set to maximum refraction while he licked his wounds and tallied his losses: loss of his vessel, loss of his cargo and contract; loss of confidence in his buyers. Rondarr struggled to control his breathing, to close his eyes and shrug off the anger like a coat of scales.

The calm was only temporary, but he felt sedate enough to try observing the local audio broadcasts again. No use; still the same drivel: spoken metaphors set to instrumental melody. Pointless sentimentality and screeching tones. Clearly this planet's dominant species was mammalian. The visual broadcasts were no better, just the same hideous female behind her desk, beaming her abnormally white canines and recapping the same old story: strange debris crashing on the beachfront and the continued efforts to scavenge at his jettisoned cargo. No reports of a second ship.

A forked tongue flicked the dark air, grasping for a scent. Where are you, hunter? Where was the demon all those superstitious cowards called the Koru-Shikai?

He tallied the possible outcomes from last night's high-speed pursuit. Dead and drowned? Incinerated on re-entry? Rondarr allowed himself an amused snort. No, like any good predator she would be skulking at the edge of his territory – probably hovering in the stratosphere and waiting to detect his take-off so she could put another missile into his fuselage. Horror stories from tavern lowlifes bubbled in his mind: Once the Koru-Shikai is loosed, it will hunt you to the grave.

The next encounter will be our last, plant eater. Revenge could wait, though. First he had to rebuild.

Rondarr swiveled his seat to examine the icy blue capsule ejected from the cockpit floor. A cryo tube – a lifeboat for wounded pilots, a way to preserve oneself via flash-freeze until the autopilot could navigate to a friendly orbital station with medical facilities. It held little purpose for a Slovarian who could regenerate entire limbs, but it did serve as a useful storage locker.

Room for one specimen. Rondarr tallied the profit numbers in his head. Several beacons from his garduk continued to transmit, but the market for an illegal, invasive species was rather limited. Cashing in a single beast wouldn't cover his expenses by far. He'd have to hunt down an entire new herd just to break even.

Or, he could present a commodity so rare it had never been offered before.

Rondarr consulted his charts. The star maps had listed Sol as a dead system and he'd never bothered to investigate further, but here he was on a young and fertile blue planet teeming with lifeforms. An Idyl world, no doubt, another of the Confederacy's attempts to mollycoddle primitive lifeforms by cutting them off from all outside contact. What foolishness! What squandered opportunities to harvest new medicines. What a misspent chance to recruit powerful beasts of burden.

What a waste of fresh meat.

"Cognition, activate exterior cameras." Visual broadcasts were swept away in favor of real-time footage of a primitive metropolis. Lines of wheel-based transports chugging down vehicle corridors; throngs of biped mammals bustling down concrete walkways, sipping beverages at outdoor eateries and laughing gaily. Each one of them like sea creatures displayed in a restaurant aquarium, oblivious to the hungry patron eyeing and tapping at their tank.

Rondarr's tail tapped idly at the cryo tube. Now, which one to choose?