Page 8 of The Commander

He ignored her.

“Dead. With human rebels. Dead,” the security head replied in his guttural language.

The useless grunts had been killed by rebels? Her companions then. She hadn’t been caught alone.

If she was with those irritating rebels, he wanted a chat. He wanted to find that vermin nest and clean it out. The last two were an independent team working for themselves.

Maybe this female knew more.

The rebels never bothered his base. As a rule, they avoided direct conflict, scurrying about like cockroaches in the dark, scrabbling around towns—bothering other humans. The duty chased them in circles.

Since Bastian wasn’t on good terms with Control, they refused him access to aerial information so he could hunt them down himself.

“You left behind a mess of bodies then?”

“No, Prime. Met new duty as we bring this one in,” the security head answered.

“Did you complete a search of the area? Which direction did the group of rebels come from? Where were they hiding? Have they bothered the town?”

It glanced at the others over the girl’s head. “We return once she’s in Correction.” Their callers and headsets seemed forgotten in their eagerness to get her into a cell.

“Bind her and leave her on the floor of room twelve. Don’t fucking touch anything. And then take a fresh duty and go clean up your mess. Clear those dead bodies away. File a report. Unless you are too stupid to manage and need me to do it?”

The girl’s eyes went wide with understanding. She was going to have to talk to Bastian. Her face held an expression like she’d won the lottery and was super excited, as old media would say.

Or not. Human faces were so mobile and expressive he was always guessing at their intended communication. She didn’t smell happy. No, she smelled terrified. Her bladder must be empty; otherwise, she’d be pissing her pants.

He used the native tongue here, having learned it and all the other planet related languages and information before taking his landside posting. The sounds were crude and ugly, but he liked that the locals could understand him. It helped turn up the dial of their fear.

This human female’s fear was an exceptional scent, indeed.

He should eliminate her now because the waves of her terror scent smelled much too tasty. The goddess loved to bite her primes in the ass with this type of shit. But since he had questions, her death would have to wait until he interviewed her for information. It wasn’t as if there was anything else pressing to take care of.

The grunts weren’t as pleased as he was. Whines through muzzled faces answered his order, but the look in his eyes shut the red hats right up. A grunt was a grunt. Nothing to him. He wouldn’t waste time with complicated disciplinary measures. Instead, he’d have them bleeding out their last down a drain, and they knew it.

“Ten human males? Rebels? Was she with them?” Bastian didn’t move, letting them bring her closer.

“No, no. No,” the girl cried out in her struggle. It had a pleasant ring, perfectly scratched with terror.

“Running from humans, Prime,” the red hat answered, drool dripping down its chin. It wanted her badly.

“Running from them, eh?” He gave her a once over. She looked like she’d been on the losing side of a war—which she had, of course—but had humans done that to her or the duty?

Two of the grunts had gotten into some human blood, too. He could see it in the way their eyes rolled and watered as they dragged her to Correction’s main entrance. Worthless mongrels. That was a blatant disregard for his rules. They’d pay for that. Human blood dulled their faculties. All the damn grunt soldiers Control sent had the divine ability to devolve into blood drugged and useless.

Bastian had requisitioned better stock repeatedly but just kept getting shit. He was beginning to think someone in the higher echelons of Control didn’t like him very much.

This was reasonable. His hatred for every one of the fucking, privileged, high-tier assholes was not a secret.

Not looking back to see if the red hats obeyed, he crossed the courtyard to his apartments. He needed to clean up the goo from his last talk with a prisoner. The grunts would do what they were told, reluctantly, leaving the human girl tied up like a gift.

Watching her fluid movements as she tried to end her own life any way she could, her odd human face fixed with resolve, ignoring everything but her goal, was an intriguing sight. She’d twisted that plush shape in amazing ways. Did she have a secret worth dying for?

He was drawn to this girl. One way or another, she’d find out just how dangerous his attention was. Certainly, he’d have to find out what made her interesting. Dissect her mind. Take apart that pretty package of a body. Could the way she drew his eyes be dangerous to him?

The early Sarrian survey corps had world seeders with them that tampered with planetary evolutions by adding Sarrian DNA streams to any hardy, compatible lineages they discovered. While exploring planets, his people had left a little bit of themselves behind, just in case it might be needed later. Not all humans would carry the ancient seed, but some of them might. She could be one of them.

As far as Bastian was concerned, all those seeds were corrupt. Cursed. They should be eliminated.

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