How could humans be dangerous? This one's been crying in the corner since we captured it "They say humans are the deadliest race in the universe, but she sure doesn't look like much does she, Captain?", Xint asked as we observed our recently acquired captive. Humans were a relatively new player to the interstellar board game and not much was known about them. Hell, this is the first human that anyone on our ship has ever seen and we get around to most of the dark corners of the empire. “As long as she sits in the corner and keeps crying like that, it works for me. Makes it easier if she doesn't even try to resist.", I mutter to Xint. The actual capture went extremely smoothly.

 

We found her all alone on a corner of one of their outposts. A quick dart filled with some gloxylin knocked her out and we brought her on board quicker than you could say 'easy money'. She woke quicker than anticipated, but she was safely in the cell, so it was of no consequence."Well Xint, you are up. We brought you on as the human expert and you said the human will need water in order to survive the journey. Go give her some.", I order. Xint left the observation room and retrieved the water before heading inside the cell. As I watch the human stand up, her face still sniffling as water and other fluids leak from her orifices, I am struck by how unimpressive humans really are compared to other races.

 

She is barely the same height as Xint and he isn't exactly tall for his race. Her limbs and body seem to be relatively weak. No overt musculature, no sharp claws, no poison sacs, no electrified glands, nothing... How these creatures are dangerous is beyond me. A yell brings my attention back to the cell. "What do you mean you can't let me go?", screams the human. Xint recoils for a split second before he gets some nerve and stands up proudly on his six legs. “You are now a slave of Emperor Krenacht. He requested to have a human in his retinue. You should really be quite pleased, serving the Emperor directly is a great honor!", Xint finishes saying while offering her the small container of water.At the mention of the word slave, the human's eyes open wide and her entire body pulls in and she takes a step away from Xint. She looks even smaller now than she did before, somehow even less dangerous. As Xint's main motor limb brings the water towards the human, she explodes into action. Her right hand swings out and slaps at the water container, sending it slamming into the viewing window that I am using.

 

My eyes open wide as I realize that the front half of Xint's motor limb is still holding the container and his eyes stare at the missing section of his limb. A loud keening wail of pain starts to leave Xint, but it is quickly silenced by the human. "LET ME GO!", she screams as she brings her hands up and pushes hard against my fellow shipmen. I have never seen one of our kind be crushed by hand as effectively as poor Xint. His body slammed into the wall, the loud crack of his hardened carapace signaling that he would not be living through this without immediate medical attention. The human stood there breathing heavily, even more water streaming down her face. She seems poised, waiting for something. I don't realize what it is until too late. Xint feebly attempts to cry for help and the moment he makes an. auditory sound, she pounces on him. I thought that her upper limbs had strength, but they were far inferior to her lower two limbs. Every time that she reared back and brought one of her feet forward in a vicious strike, I could hear the sounds of her foot breaking through his front carapace, her foot exiting his rear carapace, and her foot smashing into the wall of the cell.

 

That specific rapid fire cracking grouping of sounds will never leave my nightmares... It only took a few seconds for her to collapse there, right on Xint's body. She was covered in the pink color of Xint's internal fluids and she resumed crying almost immediately. Barely thirty seconds had passed since Xint entered the cell and I was still standing there with a blank stare, my mind trying to make sense of what I had just seen. The electronic chirp of my communication device finally brought me back to reality and I found myself immediately vacating the contents of two of my three stomachs. I hastily activated my communicator while cleaning myself off. "What is it?" "What is it?" "Captain, we are being hailed by a human ship. They say that we have one of their race on board and they are demanding we release her immediately." "Tell them that we don't have any such creature on board and it is a violation of reg-" “Captain, they launched something towards us.

 

Scans say that it has no weaponized potential. If I didn't know any better I would say it is a small lifepod of some sort." Before I could even formulate a thought as to what the humans were doing, the sound of the lifepod slamming into the hull reverberated throughout the ship. I stood there, in the observation.