Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 259(@200wpm)___ 207(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
I wonder how they manage to find so many materials in a place this remote. It does not look as though there are any trails in or out of the place. The borders of the village and its fields are surrounded by paths worn by what must presumably be patrols, but there is no other evidence of trade routes.
While I take stock of the village, one of the idiots starts shouting.
“They killed the pastor! Aliens! Big ugly aliens! Look at his fangs! Two sets! One up! One down! That’s a predator’s face.”
“I thought they were quite attractive,” a woman mumbles, more to herself than anybody in particular.
I can see that my reception continues to be mixed. Emily remains by my side, holding onto my arm while her fellow villagers decide whether or not to submit to me and comply with my future instructions. They do not truly have a choice, but humans function best when presented with the illusion of it.
“Kill the alien!”
The call goes up from a little group of people, mostly male and young, channeling a primal bloodthirstiness that I find absolutely adorable. I could destroy them in a simple gesture if I felt so inclined. Their aggression is nothing to me, no more than a little dog yapping at their heels would be to them.
Of course, Emily is not aware of this, though she should be, having seen how I dispatched Wrathelder guards before her no doubt frightened eyes.
She moves to stand in front of me, arms spread out as she attempts to defend me. It is the sweetest, cutest thing I have ever seen and so of course I indulge it, watching as she attempts to reason with the other frightened villagers who want me dead.
“He’s the one who stopped us from being killed. He killed all the bad aliens and brought us back home! His name is Zain, and he hates the bad guys.”
She is missing much of the political nuance of the situation, but that’s to be expected, and when explaining things to panicked humans it is always better to be simple than thorough.
“He’s the good guy!” she repeats. “This is the guy you owe your lives!”
It’s funny how all narratives inevitably seem to be distilled to that overly simple point. The good guy is the one who puts you on a leash and fucks you well. The bad guy is the one who throws you out of an airlock. The rest of them will learn to appreciate the difference in time.
“You saw him fight them?”
“I saw him do more than fight them. He killed them for us. He was waiting, hiding on the ship and then he killed dozens of them.”
“He killed dozens of them?”
“With his bare hands and fangs,” she says, a note of sweet pride in her voice. “He’s very good at killing.”
“Then we should kill him first!”
“No! Idiots!” She’s losing her patience very quickly. “Look at him. Look at this ship. Look what happened to us. We need him to defend us. To protect us. We need…”
“DIE, VOROS SCUM!”
It seems I missed a guard. One last straggler chooses this moment to come out of the ship behind me with his weapon drawn. If he had any sense, he would have fired on me before yelling at me, but Wrathelder grunts aren’t known for their intellect or battle prowess. I’d wager this one has never seen combat before. Unfortunately for him, this is going to be his first and last time combined.
I swing around, pushing Emily behind me. I know very well he does not want to shoot the humans, stupid shouting aside. He wants to round them up and return to Euphoria in triumph. Neither one of those things will be happening. He has made himself fodder for a demonstration I am only too pleased to give.
I mustn’t kill him too quickly. I want the humans to see the threat, experience the fear, and then give themselves over to it. Then I want to save them. I want them to see me as their hero. That will make acceptance much easier to gain throughout this entire tribe of wild little humans.
“KILL IT!”
Before I can slaughter the heavily armored Wrathelder soldier, the human men rush up around me and swarm him with no care for their own safety. They are not armed with particularly terrible weapons. There are a few firearms, but they will not pierce Wrathelder armor, and aside from that they have nothing but farm implements. I am certain I am about to watch a bloodbath. These primitive little things are not equipped physically or materially to make any impact on a soldier of our kind.
My instinct proves to be true, but not in the way I anticipated. The Wrathelder soldier swings his weapon to fire upon them, but the split-second loss in concentration as he refocuses from me to the humans costs him. One of the humans grabs the nose end of the weapon and uses it to drag himself right into the unfortunate soldier’s face. Almost as quickly, a blade flashes up through the Wrathelder soldier’s chin. It is enough of a wound to disfigure and maim, but not enough to kill. It is a brutal, terrible, cruel thing. And now, with the hilt buried against his jaw, his mouth is effectively nailed shut by thick and potentially rusted farm steel.