My E.V.A helmet came off with a hiss and a light pop, the scouter I wore under it chirping as it acknowledged the change in its heads up display. I leaned down for a moment, my orange eyes meeting that of our ship's new VIP. The glare the enemy pirate captain was throwing me told me she took personal offense to the idea of her people being eaten. Her Ki told me the pain of the idea went deeper than a personal disgust. Cultural perhaps? Maybe they had a specific burial method to go along with their particularly xenophobic view on things.
In her eyes I might have seen shame or humiliation to match the feelings I could sense churning throughout that gorgeous body of hers, but whatever she saw in my own gaze forced her to flinch back. I smirked, and when she hastily looked back at me we both knew who had won whatever contest she seemed to be setting up for. I stood up before anyone could assume I had an unhealthy interest in the captain's prize, taking note of the indignation in her energy before turning to the celebration. I had some time before my orders took me back to our ship, and more specifically to our kitchen.
In the meantime I couldn't help but observe the growing hatred of the beauty at the center of all this chaos. She was a bubbling cauldron of humiliation and hatred. Shattered pride and broken superiority. What surprised me about it was just how focused it seemed to be. Normally anger like that is directed everywhere, and yet she had it directed at a razor's point towards Jernus, and at me. I couldn't help but wonder if she would survive around here, if that was some kind of winning concoction.
I decided to listen to the captain speak as more people were dragged inside the room, many of them now kicking and screaming at the macabre display of their fellows as they were mistreated in whatever manner their captors decided on.
"So does your… Illustrious people have a name to go with this poor attitude for first contact procedure?" Jernus drawled, still leaning back on the railing of the pirate command deck, the very picture of practiced ease.
The metal paneling of the floor we stood on shifted slightly as the woman decided to stand, spitting on Jernus' Freeza Force issued boots.
"We are the Reyallow." She snarled, eyes sparkling with pride and hatred in equal measure. "You'll remember it well when word reaches our people of your ridiculous notion of warfare."
The bluster managed to draw a laugh from the commanders who bothered to listen to the exchange, and I saw how the dismissal rankled her. The woman wasn't used to being put aside.
"Warfare?" Jernus questioned, a chuckle slipping through his lips. "We don't practice warfare in the Cold Empire. That would imply a battle between equal powers. Our business, my dear, is genocide. We just happen to be very good at our chosen vocation."
The captain strode forward, his hand shooting forward to grasp her chin before she could pull away. With a gasp of disgust she tried to pull away, but his grip must have been a vice with the difference in strength.
"-and if you know our language well enough to speak it, that means you received our data package before going into space. Since I haven't heard of your people, I can only assume your people refused to acknowledge the hails we regularly send into every sector of space we find."
He paused, licking his lips as his eyes roamed over every inch of her body. He looked up, back into the pirate's eyes.
"We don't allow anyone who refuses to contribute to join the collective. Your people will be slaughtered and enslaved. Your planet will be sold to the highest bidder among those who did in fact choose to join, and its future will be decided at their behest."
The chorus of screams and victorious revelry echoing all around seemed to reach a crescendo in time to match Jernus' final declaration.
"You and yours however, belong to me and me alone."
It had been about sixteen hours since we salvaged their ship and started to tow it back to a local outpost for research and development. There were particular rewards for the discovery of new and useful technology. We would all see a nice bonus attached to our next conquest.
At the captain's command word was sent to local PTO outposts about an unknown world somewhere in sector 17932-B with intelligent life and technology of relative use to the greater empire. Once scout probes narrowed the potential for life down to a few unexplored star systems, more thorough approaches would be taken to discern the value of this prospective target, and if they were lucky a few diplomatic overtures would be made for the Reyallow people to join as a vassal state to the cold empire, more particularly Freeza Force and its associated states.
Based off how well first contact seems to have gone this time around I can only assume they're not gonna accept, and then either a few dozen ships like our own will show up, or an individual marked as a high class warrior. Either way the majority of this new and proud race will die, and we'll get what we wanted.
Not that this was any particular concern of mine, but the thought crossed my mind as I activated the recording function of my scouter, looking over the dozen or so souls now cowering in my kitchen. I had requested individuals uncontaminated with any sexual fluid, or any mind altering pheromones. That left me with decidedly fewer guests in my abode. Mostly Males. They had been beaten severely before they arrived at my door, and most could barely stand on their own.
To be honest it would have been a much simpler task to process the bodies of those who died in battle, but Jernus wanted to make a bad impression on our prisoners, and harden some recruits at the same time. Viewing would be mandatory for most crew members.
Apara was sitting on a cabinet, waiting for me to get started. I've told her a few times that sitting over my work won't make it go any faster. If anything the smell of food would make the wait all the more difficult, and still she popped up to hover and complain. This time around she knew she would be getting a double portion.
Chances are only the bestial members of our crew will actually partake in the meal I make today, but sometimes a message needed to be sent. I tapped my scouter a few more times, cycling through a list of foreign names and titles, before finally just shrugging and selecting the 'random' function.
I breathed in as the music started, and strings were plucked to the tune of a woman singing a mournful song. An unfortunate kind of death knell for a few giants in well over their head.
I had asked a Veridian, an emerald colored squat with the head of a dog, for a comprehensive list of operatic songs to listen to as I prepared meals and trained in return for my best recreation of the meal his mother fed him before she croaked in a retaliatory raid a few years back. Apparently I had done well enough that he had gone above and beyond to see his part through.
I found through the medium of Opera the necessity of language or specific culture fades into the background with everything else, leaving me with just notes and a tone to get behind. I never listened to Beethoven or anything like that before I got here, but I feel like what began to breeze through the cold metal of my workspace might have been somewhat similar. After so long in silence it was a welcome change.
"Today's meal will be a relatively simple one. It will include a number of Naldinnian spices to go with some vegetables I personally collected from Navros Prime while we were collecting our newest additions. With that in mind I would like to welcome our Navorian brethren aboard the Diligent Frost in as official a capacity as a cook can."
With that said I tapped a few buttons, and out of a metal drawer slid an array of knives and carving implements of all sizes. I withdrew the ones I had personally labeled 'large carving', 'large boning', and 'large butcher', taking a moment to sharpen them before I continued.
"The primary protein included in today's stew will be a new species discovered yesterday, day twenty-three month four of Age 734, year 88 of King Cold's Reign. These people refer to themselves as the 'Reyallow', and can be identified with features including orange skin of various tones, a larger than standard sentient size averaging between 7 and 10 feet tall, and it seems a culturally xenophobic disposition much more likely to seek out violence."
I paused as one of them stood up on shaking legs, looking to his comrades for support. Not all of them shared the galactic standard as a language, but it can't have been too hard to guess what their future held if they didn't at least try to fight back. I can only guess what message passed silently between them, but soon the whole group was standing with him, ready to make their last stand.
In response, I inverted the flow of my ki, purposefully reversing its natural route throughout my body. It wouldn't have any effect on my combat power as long as I paid attention, and while it served no real purpose aside from making a relatively easy task much harder, it would be good practice for when I had to manage my energy in battle. Kind of like breathing manually.
"Commander Feathers of Yellow has already sampled these individuals personally, and is happy to report to the connoisseurs onboard that the taste strongly resembles the pit beasts they use for cattle on Creal Seven, with a strong hint of poultry to be found in joints and ligaments. I will be preparing those pieces separately to be mixed with Folgus root in an approximation of one of my homeworld's dishes, known as mashed potatoes. If you have any requests for more of my peoples cuisine, please let me know and I will take steps to see them made to whatever standard you request."
Ki flowed into the simple metals of my tools, and I felt a familiar warmth in the palms of my hands. I saw the hesitation in the front-runner's eyes. He towered over me like a basketball player towers over his children, but with his shoulders hunched and his eyes searching for ways to escape you would think he was the smallest being in the room. Like his friends this Reyallow soldier wore the black remains of an interesting visored battlesuit, at this point now ruined into a tattered garb of loose cloth and broken wiring. I could hear static voices over an open mic or something similar on his neck. We had let them keep their communications on.
Their ki told me these people were already broken. I was here to make sure that stayed the case.
He stepped back at first, before charging towards me, arms reaching for my kitchenware. His boots squeaked against the hard tile, and before he could react my blade came down on his wrist. With a squeal the alien drew back, grasping at an appendage that wasn't there. I grimaced at him, pointing a blade at the crowd now hesitating once again.
For a moment I could hear the cold dark of a cave lined with pipes, and the screams of friends through the medium of an animal hunting for more to add to its chorus.
"Don't expect sympathy from me. I have work to do."