Page 12 of Ava Greasemonkey

She put a picture of the Vorbax on the biggest screen. There weren’t many male Humans in the breeding facility she was born at. They were usually sold after growing up to a serviceable age. The few she remembered didn’t have physiques like these Vorbax.

They’re as handsome as the Tuxa are ugly.She stopped and just admired the 3D rendering of one of the males, feeling flushed, before focusing on the words again.

Thankfully most of the articles were in the Common language, but a few were in the Phor’s native tongue, which she couldn’t read beyond a few phrases related to engine modules and technology. The ones in Common appeared to be propaganda pieces put out by the Tuxa. Those pieces were derisive of the Vorbax culture and everything about them. In fact, the video that Ebel showed her earlier of the battle was released by the Tuxa themselves, probably to try to paint themselves as the victim.

Ava read some of the articles with heavy skepticism.They’re trying too hard.She wasn’t convinced and searched for less biased sources.

Picking one of the Phor pieces, she had it read the article aloud for her, relying on her translator chip to change the clicks and whirrs as it read to Common for her to understand. The computer required an override she couldn’t do to translate the written word to Common.

Once that was done, she opened one of the articles in Common on another screen to read as well, alternating between listening and reading, trying to decipher what she could from around the Tuxa’s heavy hand of censorship. She gritted her teeth in frustration, annoyed at having to puzzle together every little bit of information.

Ava only just started to learn about the Vorbax’s home planet Xai, a humid and jungle-looking place, when the com from the queen’s room burst with noise, startling her.

That was fast.She turned away from the main feed and scooted up close to the queen’s one off to the side of her information feeds to see better.

“Whyyyy am I being woken up?” the queen mother grumbled. Looking up at the feed, Ava saw that several of the Phor had already gathered in her room littered with pillows and blankets. As she watched, Ebel slid into the back, farthest out of sight. Ava winced and turned the feed volume down a little; the queen was always so loud when she spoke.

The queen’s fangs dripped slight acid. Ava watched it drip on the pillows strewn around her room, seeing holes start to appear. She’d be pissed tomorrow when she realized what her acid ruined and would demand they be replaced. Ava had seen it happen before. In the time Ava was a part of the crew, the male Phor had wised up and now had extras stuffed in unused cabins.

The Phor drones, Ebel included, would do quite literally anything to placate her. The nearest one started humming to calm her down, almost like a buzz.

Wert walked up and talked with her, his body prostate on the floor in front of her. “Beloved Queen. We would not dare disturb your rest were it not concerning. We took on a transport today of a bunch of war criminals the Tuxa had captured. They are Vorbax, our love. The Tuxa said the collective signed off on this.”

Wert’s antennas were so low they hit the floor.

Ava found that the most startling. She had never seen one of them in such a vulnerable position before. Every inch of him was quivering. She shifted on her chair nervously while watching.

The queen stopped dripping acid, though the scowl returned to her face.

Swatting Wert aside, she reached forward and called up a hologram of the main collective colony on their primary planet.

Wert fell against the nightstand table when she hit him, stumbling over, but quickly moved back into a kneeling position at the queen’s feet.

Ava winced watching it happen.Poor Wert.He was always one of the queen’s favorites too.

The feed was distorted from the angle Ava had to watch from so the hologram call was hard to make out, but she could hear the queen arguing with the other collective queens.

Their clicks went too fast for her translator to keep up, so Ava only received parts of the discussion. She rubbed her ear in frustration. The queen’s face was visibly annoyed from the little bit she could see, and she was gesturing wildly while talking, acid flying again. Ava strained to listen and gathered that the collective appeared to be pushing back on her complaints. They cited an enormous credit amount the Tuxa had delivered for their cooperation and that they did not know ahead of time the species involved in transport.

“Would you have still accepted knowing what you know now?” the queen spat out, the Phor closest to her wincing as acid hit them.

Ava grimaced as well, watching the sizzle on their fuzzy shoulders.

“Affirmative, we would have. You know we are in need of resources to expand. Our other ships have taken similar risks for their contracts. You cannot think yourself above this. Everything is for the collective. You will remember this from when we assigned you your own ship and harem. We can assign another queen mother if you are not in alignment with our needs.”

The queen visibly bristled at this. Her antennas went flying and her large abdomen started twitching over her many pillows. The threat hit its mark though. She took a more conciliatory appearance with her antennas smoothing out and her tone more mild. “Very well, we will be in contact.”

“Please let us know. Frequent status reports.” The hologram clicked out.

The queen mother looked over her harem and sighed. The drones were all silent for a minute, not wanting to offend her,their bodies silently vibrating. Keeping up a steady buzz, the one nearest her reached out and caressed her side.

Ava wasn’t interested in seeing their lovefest, so she looked away from the feed back to the Vorbax papers, disgusted, until she heard the queen cry, “Enough. It is enough. We will follow our orders. The video feeds for that area are offline. The Tuxa don’t want us observing them as well as the prisoners. I want only the collective to handle their daily upkeep and to be our eyes down there. I don’t trust our usual contracted staff to engage with either the Tuxa or Vorbax. We have to be careful enough with this, and if we ask the contractors for help they’ll likely try to extort us because it’s different from their stated agreements. We will petition the Tuxa for camera access in the main hallway at the very least as a compromise.”

The collective started discussing security measures on the ship and extra barriers that could be put in place in case the Tuxa and the Vorbax became combative. As this ship was primarily a transport for cargo, not a warship, there was not much in the way of extra measures already built in other than to depressurize the whole compartment as a last resort, killing all inside.

Ava frowned, silently watching.That’s brutal.She observed the queen visibly bristle when this was suggested, knowing that if it came to that she would most likely be relocated back to her home planet and lose her prized position.

Ava half listened, still clicking through the Phor logs, until she heard the queen mention, “That slave Human can help as well. Tell her to observe when they think they are alone like she does for the shipments. She can also handle most of the upkeep so we don’t have to stretch ourselves too thin. Tell her she needs to observe the Tuxa as much as the Vorbax.”

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