In Wraith society, there are many amusements.
A significant part of them involves animals, people, whose purpose is only one – to be food for the most perfect life form in all known galaxies.
But none of this compares to the feeling of total superiority when life leaves an animal, flowing through the feeding suction cup into the Wraith's body.
The Queen of Death, despite the numerous murders and feedings she had performed aboard this station, felt such an intoxicating feeling for the first time. The last time she felt something similar was ten thousand years ago, when she fed on Lantians.
Strength, defiance, will... And all of this, amplified by enzymes, only fanned the flame within the Queen. To look into the eyes of a victim, paralyzed by their own horror and pain from the realization of their dwindling life, is priceless.
"Strong," the Queen of Death brought her face closer to the woman whom the man had brought back to consciousness a minute ago. Her skin was losing its former elasticity, becoming flabby and wrinkled. And the Lantian could do nothing about it – the enzyme gave her strength, but the Wraith's physiology did not allow her to even move a finger. All she could do was watch with pain and hatred as the Queen of Death rolled her eyes from the euphoria that enveloped her.
It is all the more pleasant to feed on Ancients, rather than those pathetic humans she had drained on the station. But even the sub-Lantian, the technician she drank first from the last group, was not as strong and beautiful. And this woman... An old woman... Yes, she was exactly what the Queen of Death called an "exquisite dish."
And once again, Death congratulated herself on her shrewdness. She immediately realized that the people remaining in the control room, who had cut her off from the central part of the platform, could wait. But the fact that the platform was not flooding after her sabotage should be checked...
Probably, one of that pair survived.
She watched them save each other, how they stopped the water flows... And how the boy was selflessly trying to revive his friend. He was so engrossed in the process that he didn't even hear the quiet splash of water when the Queen of Death approached him from behind.
The personal shield he had was almost discharged. She understood this when she watched the people from the ventilation. The way he flinched, deactivated the door shield, and felt the cold on his legs, she noticed with her keen gaze.
And she put all her strength into her blow.
Now he lay unconscious – she looked at the man immediately after feeding. He would be her next prey. And then, she would use their weapons to break through the shields, enter the control room, and have a feast...
Her victim's eyes glazed over with a white film, which meant there wasn't much time left, she could take the last bit. Anyway, asking her anything was pointless – she wouldn't tell.
A proud Lantian... Or rather, she wasn't that strong. Most likely a half-blood, of which the Queen had drunk plenty. She just confused them due to the passage of time...
The Queen was preparing to enjoy the last drops of the half-blood's life when something wet and angular poked the base of her skull.
"Do you know the riddle about two chairs?" she heard a young male voice.
The same voice that had been muttering absurdities when he was reviving her future victim.
The Queen winced, realizing that the intoxicating feeling had made her lose her vigilance.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, frantically looking for a way out.
"On the first chair – a quick death," the guy announced. "On the second – a chance to live longer. Which chair will you choose yourself, and which will you give to my friend?"
The Queen roared with rage. She was being given an ultimatum.
"You took advantage of my weakness!"
"That's right, you sucking bitch," the boy's voice sounded angry. "I've watched Koschei feed enough to know – you're clearly vulnerable during that process. And Trebal," it seemed to be her victim's name, "is a tempting candy for you to leave for later. It seems you've confused which of us is more dangerous."
"I'll drain you both," the Queen of Death promised.
"Shoot," the old woman lying under her arm whispered. "Kill... us."
The angular body of the impulse pistol dug deeper into the Wraith Queen's skull.
"Give back what you took," the man ordered.
The Queen bared her teeth.
Stupid humans and their stupid desire to save the same kind of cattle as themselves. Except this particular animal managed to take advantage of her weakness. And got a weapon from somewhere.
The Queen lowered her eyes, seeing that the holster on her victim's hip was torn. It seemed the boy had snatched the weapon and flown away from her blow. But he should have died! But it seemed he was stronger than he looked.
Well, this is not a loss yet.
"And what in return?" the Queen began to bargain. "It will take me only one effort to end her life."
"And for me – just a little squeeze of the trigger, and instead of your head, there will be only emptiness," the man countered.
"And you'll kill your female!" The euphoria from the consumed mighty life still didn't allow the Queen of Death to think clearly.
The feeling of intoxication from the life forces she had drained from people played a cruel trick on her. But she couldn't stop herself.
Her hunger was unstoppable, and her physiology demanded to be satisfied... But she had taken too much "in reserve," not knowing when she would be able to eat again.
"She's already dead anyway. If you're not going to return her youth, then there's no point in regretting it. Especially since she herself asked for an easy death," the guy concluded. "But you can still save yourself."
"Will you let me go?" the Queen of Death asked incredulously.
"I'm willing to discuss your offer," the guy said evasively. "It seems you were talking about neutrality," the Queen twitched her neck slightly, but the boy was on guard. "Don't even think about it. My patience is not infinite. Especially since Trebal is categorically against me finishing you both. Well!"
He accompanied his last statement with another press of the weapon into the Queen of Death's head.
"Why should I believe you?" she made her final argument.
"And why should I believe you'll bring Trebal back to life, and not kill her?" he countered.
"Fair enough," the Queen of Death admitted, her plan finally solidified.
Looking at the barely breathing victim, the Queen focused on the sensation of overwhelming life energy. In a century of war with the Lantians, she hadn't saved many of her own kind from death through reverse feeding.
And she had never used it to save animals. Only for torture and their transformation into her agents.
But now... She would have to risk becoming a little weaker. But only to finally win the battle.
Tuning in, she began to transfer life energy from herself into the decrepit body of the human female.
But she did it slowly, so that the parts of her brain free from this process could monitor the situation and prepare for the decisive battle.
"Ihaar," Tayla used the comms. "I've checked all the corridors and rooms inside the safe zone. She's not here."
"I know already," the senior engineer admitted reluctantly. "A 'jumper' from Atlantis arrived. They detected a wraith and two human life signals in the corridor near the destroyed second docking bay."
"How did they know it was a wraith?" Tayla had already made her decision and ran towards the required corridor.
"And why are two more of ours there?" the senior engineer asked. "If there were no wraith, they would have already gone to any of the bays and tried to restore the intercoms!"
"Right," Tayla said. "And it's probably Misha and Trebal?"
"Just a guess!"
"Not just a guess!" the Athosian retorted. "The Queen of Death easily killed the others! But here, for some reason, two are still alive! She's either trying to break their resistance, or they've taken her prisoner and are bandaging her wounds! I have to go to them!"
The girl stopped in front of a stationary shield.
"Ihaar, please!"
The senior engineer hesitated for a fraction of a second. A crackle, a flash of white light – and the path was clear.
"Alvar and Kirik are leading a group of technicians down the second corridor," he reported. "They brought the 'jumper' right to the exit hatch to the surface and pushed the ship in stern-first."
"You managed to open the hatch for them?" Tayla was surprised, running through the large puddles on the corridor floor.
"I sent a technician to the backup command post, and we're controlling what we can from there," Ihaar admitted reluctantly.
Tayla suppressed her offense. So, he hesitated to do it for her, but as soon as people arrived...?
The Athosian swallowed her pride and continued running.
Ihaar had done the right thing. And he had only done it when she had secured the path from the dispatcher to the ZKP. That was right, no risk.
"I'll be there in five minutes," the Athosian reported, praying she wouldn't get lost in these corridors.
She also prayed that one of these three survivors would still be Mikhail – only then could she somehow try to justify her people to Atlantis. Otherwise...
Honestly, she really didn't want to know what would happen if Atlantis stopped cooperating with the Athosians because of her people's inexplicable actions.
The fog in her head was clearing, and the half-blood was getting younger and younger... The gray hair disappeared, her body rounded out, and the veil from her eyes no longer hid her desire to kill the Queen of Death.
The wraith, no matter how much she tried to stall, understood that time was irrevocably running out. She could already feel other people nearby. One, very similar to a wraith, obviously the mutant who could sense them, was too close. And at least seven more – all with strong minds, possibly all Ancients, a little further away.
In any case, she couldn't wait any longer.
The Queen of Death saw perfectly well that her victim was not in a state to resist – the return of life energy was acting on her like a strong drug. Therefore, now was the moment when her consciousness was cleared of excess, and one of the opponents could not help the other.
As a guarantee, the Queen of Death poured a little more energy into the victim than she had taken. And she noticed that her eyes became moist, her pupils slightly unfocused...
Enough!
As she had sensed, the boy was distracted by the resurrection of his friend.
The Queen of Death put all her speed into her lunge.
Twisting on her knees, she threw out her leg, simultaneously knocking the weapon out of the boy's hand.
The pulse pistol flew further down the corridor, melting part of the wall and slicing off her left ear, as well as part of the skin on her body. If she had been a little slower, it would have killed her!
Roaring with pain and rage, she lunged at the boy lying on the floor, intending to break his rib cage with one blow. No time to feed, time to kill!
To her surprise, the man rolled aside and cheerfully got up. His leg flew up.
Pain and a flash of light threw the Queen of Death back, but she managed to slash the man's leg with her sharp claws. A masterful blow – she had severed an artery. He screamed in pain, falling to the floor, drenching it in blood.
That was it, he was no longer a fighter. Either he would bleed to death or be busy bandaging himself. In any case, only the female remained.
The Queen recoiled, got up.
With one movement, she reset her broken jaw, noting that the flash she had seen occurred precisely at the moment of impact. And her own eyesight was to blame!
Spitting out her knocked-out teeth and fragments of the others onto the floor, she roared and lunged at the boy struggling to get up. Kill! Here, now...
A lightning-fast movement that struck her legs and made her fall to the floor, she did not expect. Nor the subsequent strong kick from her recent victim from bottom to top.
The human female's heel struck her between the shoulder blades, causing the Queen of Death's nose to crack. Getting another broken jaw, which immediately began to regenerate, the queen pushed off the floor and sprang to the wall, assessing her position.
The victim, blinking frequently and trying to regain composure, stood next to the man wounded by Death. Frozen in a combat stance, the female demonstrated her readiness to engage in a deadly fight to protect the male, who had taken a gamble for her salvation.
"I will kill you in the most horrific way!" the Queen of Death promised, preparing to attack.
She probably wouldn't be able to defeat those rushing towards her. But she would definitely kill this pair of carriers of Lantian blood.
"Say that again!" the woman shouted at her, lunging forward.
The Queen was ready for them to attack her with their fists, but...
Instead, the human female jumped forward, braced her hands on the floor, arched her back, shifting her body weight, and with a kick of both feet to the chest, sent the Queen of Death further down the corridor. Twisting in mid-air and landing on her feet, the Queen spread her arms wide, maintaining her balance.
Her gaze landed on the pulse pistol lying nearby, which she had knocked out of the male's hands...
"Trebal!" the latter shouted. "She has the pulse pistol!"
The Queen lunged for the weapon, but it was too late.
The female crashed into her from the side, knocking her away from the weapon. Her leg, with one movement, kicked the pistol towards the man. And immediately the female struck the Queen of Death in the face with her knee.
The wraith expected this.
Grabbing the woman by the torso, the Queen turned sharply on her heels, throwing her against the wall. Screaming in pain, the one named Trebal slid down the wall.
But a second later, ignoring the blood oozing from her shattered temple, she got to her feet.
The Queen sized her up, realizing she saw the same bloodlust in her eyes as in her own.
"If you were a wraith, I would call you my daughter," she admitted honestly, moving in for an attack from a new angle. "A true queen..."
She didn't finish speaking – the female lunged at her legs. The Queen focused on avoiding the immobilizing grip... And immediately received a kick to the face with a heavy boot.
Taking a couple of steps back, she took a side kick to the head, sending her flying to the floor. Landing, she rolled aside, avoiding the human female's jump onto her chest.
Slicing with her bones at her legs, she felt them turn red with blood – red splashes appeared on the floor.
Seeing the woman overcoming the pain, the Queen stepped back, licked her claws with undisguised pleasure, preparing to attack.
"Sweet blood," she assessed. "You must be nauseous from the enzyme, female. I've cut your major vessels and a vein – the blood is leaving you. As are your strength. You can no longer fight..."
"But I can!" With these words, the queen barely managed to jerk back as a burst of energy incinerated her right arm below the elbow. Along with her left fingers.
Screaming in pain, the Queen struck the human female who had lunged at her with her disfigured left hand. She flew to the side, hit her head against the wall, and collapsed unconscious.
The Queen dodged the next shot and knocked down the young man. His weapon flew to the side, as she had planned, and she bit his forearm with her teeth. Nothing else could help him now.
He managed to bandage his wounded leg with a piece of his pants and thought he could shoot the wraith. But like all Lantians, he didn't understand that their destructive weapons were too slow!
Knocking him down, the queen swiped at his face with the stump of her left hand, trying to pierce his throat with the remains of her right elbow joint. Opening her mouth wide, she intended to sink her disfigured mouth directly into the exposed neck of the Lantian...
A powerful punch to the temple disoriented her and knocked the Queen of Death off the man. The man, with difficulty, got up on his elbow. The Queen mirrored this maneuver, but immediately received a blow with that very bitten hand to the jaw. And another, and another...
She fell face down on the floor, and the man ended up on her back.
Her damaged left arm, on which one finger had almost grown back, was twisted behind the Queen's back. Pain shot through her body, but it seemed the man had no intention of stopping.
He sharply jerked her arm up, dislocating it and tearing muscles and tendons.
The Queen screamed in pain.
Her headwear was torn off by the man's hands. Her wet hair pulled her head back as he grabbed her by it.
"Don't! You! Dare! Touch! My! People! Stupid! Bitch!" the man shouted.
And every word, every pause between them was accompanied by her face hitting the hard surface of the floor. Her nose bones were completely broken, her facial bones cracked and deformed... Her cheekbone shifted, knocking out an eye, which spilled onto the floor.
Blood flooded the Queen of Death's second eye, filled her mouth. Her disfigured jawbone had broken through the skin in several places, but the Queen of Death did not give up so easily. She had had worse injuries.
Timing her moment, she jerked her body, leaning on her shoulders and lifting her rear.
Throwing the man off her, she darted to the side, got on her knees, and sprang to her feet. The first blow with her bare foot, she delivered to the stomach – the most painful spot for animals.
With the second, she intended to crush his face.
Even though she no longer understood what she was saying or trying to say to her enemy, she was simply obligated to kill him.
Raising her leg to break the man's face, the Queen of Death saw a fleeting shadow from the side where the defeated female should have been. Changing her intentions, Death used her inactive left hand to strike the female-Trebal like a whip.
This time the blow was perfect. The woman hit her head against the wall, and something in her body cracked.
The Queen, realizing that the mutant was practically nearby, slammed her foot into the man's face, causing him terrible pain and disorientation. Her entire being as a female, a queen, demanded that she kill the most dangerous of her enemies.
At least him.
Turning to the defeated female and feeling that she was still alive, the queen approached her and collapsed her entire body on her. Tucking her legs so that her knee pressed on the fragile neck of the human woman, she transferred all her weight to this spot. A little more, a little more, she would die soon, but she would take this defiant woman with her...
The blow to the back of her head was strong, painful, and for a moment the Queen of Death lost consciousness.
She regained consciousness from another pain and pressure on her torso. Opening her intact eye, she saw a human male sitting on her. His face was contorted with rage and pain.
His strong fingers, like steel grips, held her neck, constricting her airways.
"Don't touch my people, you creature!" he roared in her face, pulling her neck towards him. "Die! Die! Die!"
And then, her head hit the floor with force. And again, and again...
The Queen of Death's consciousness faded after the tenth blow, when she heard the crack of her skull and the squelching sounds as her skull hit the floor for the last time.
And then there was darkness and an unfulfilled desire to kill her enemies.
"Die! Die! Die!"
Animalistic screams and the sounds of blows, coupled with inhuman cracking and squelching, Emagan had heard for the last thirty seconds. The young woman, thoroughly frightened, still didn't change her nature and didn't stop.
Whatever was happening where she was going, her sense of loyalty left no room for cowardice.
When Tayla reached the corridor adjacent to the second docking bay, she hesitated against her will.
As Ihaar had said, she found three people here.
And a lot of blood. On the floor, on the walls, even on the ceiling.
Trebal lay against the wall, blood seeping from under her head.
Next to her, like a broken doll, lay the Queen of Death, the killer of her people. But one could only tell that this was the only wraith on the mobile drilling platform by her disfigured torso and legs.
On top of her, unconscious, lay Mikhail, clutching the wraith queen's neck with a steel grip. And above her neck...
Against her will, Tayla screamed, covering her mouth with her hand.
Never in her life had she seen such a bloody nightmare. Not at the hands of wraiths, and certainly not of humans.
"Tayla!" Alvar was beside her, grabbing her. If he hadn't, the Athosian would have collapsed, her legs giving out. "What is this...?"
Alvar looked at the corridor, the bodies, and peered closer...
"Damn it!" he repeated with feeling the curse that Mikhail often muttered under his breath. "What happened here?! How is this even possible?!"
Kirik, who had burst into the corridor with two pistols at the ready, froze like a statue, staring at the scene of carnage. Tayla, unable to say a word, trembled with horror before her eyes.
Kirik seemed to be reciting some prayer for protection from evil spirits. And Tayla would have supported him... If she could remember even one.
The Ancient technicians who rushed in a second later reacted in a more human way.
They started vomiting at the sight of the Queen of Death's crushed skull and the scattered pieces of her skull and brains.
And a second later, Tayla and Kirik joined them.
Only Alvar, suppressing the urge to vomit, rushed to the unconscious people, calling the senior engineer on the way. Whether it was possible to save at least one of the people involved in this slaughter, Tayla could not understand.
She lost consciousness.