Chapter 261: (Hesstla) (2/2)
”No.”
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It drifted through the snowy forest, for the first time in its thousands of years of life shielding and masking its psionic powers, suppressing its aura, holding all of its psychic abilities deep inside of itself. It had to rely on its eyes, which watered painfully in the moonlit night even though thick clouds covered the moon. It drifted, unwilling to walk. No, it would rather die than walk like a slave race.
It knew if it could get far enough away from the howling and snarling feral intelligences that had harried it, that had destroyed the invasion, that had had the audacity to actually assault its perfection with their rude limbs, it could open up a link to its others. Once a link was established it could guide others through the dark dimension that they traveled via wormhole.
It refused to flee this planet. It had been granted the stellar system and all within it. It had chosen the stellar system carefully. An entire species of peaceful creatures who could be harvested, farmed, and forced to serve as was proper.
Instead the foul primates just kept swarming, kept denying its greatness.
It drifted around a crude ground vehicle, ignoring the corpses inside.
It refused to admit to pain, its head ached from the gibbering maddened screams emanating from the primate's brains. It drifted through the forest, trying to enjoy the serenity of the darkness, the cold, and the snow.
It was glad that the hated stellar mass was hidden from view. It had not been properly adjusted to proper light and size, instead it was small, yellow, wastefully energetic.
It saw the rippling shimmer of free standing liquid dihydrogen-monoxide and moved toward it. It would use the liquid to ground out the snarling growling screaming of the primates and center itself.
Maybe then it could...
...
...
it drifted to a stop. It could sense a mind. Fresh, undamaged by the psychic screams of the fighting. The mind's feather light trace tasted youthful, full of potential and latent power.
It changed direction, the sense of the unshielded mind vanishing and reappearing strangely. When it rounded a bend, it understood.
The rock was full of heavy elements and hid a small rude dwelling.
Inside it could feel the minds burning brightly and one enter the crude building.
Feeling a close approximation to pleasure and anticipation it glided toward the domicile with the lit viewing portals.
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”Nee ate another bug,” Elu said from the couch.
”She's fine,” Dambree said, kicking the back door shut. She had cut firewood in her arms that she dropped in the wood box next to the stove. She sighed, shrugging out of her jacket and setting it on the hook, then tugged off her boots.
She could see Elu and Tru sitting at the table, doing lessons from Mister Mewmew that Mister Daisy had given him. Nee was sitting over by the gap in the floor boards that led under the house, chewing away, two bug legs sticking out of her mouth. She was drooling, a happy expression on her face, her ears straight up, and her beautiful amber eyes watching Dambree.
Dambree walked in, sighing, and undid the gunbelt. She hung up the belt and put the heavy pistol on the end table before sitting down. Mister Mewmew jumped up and on her lap, purring softly. Dambree saw Nee put her hands down and start to crawl, chewing on the bug.
Dambree sighed. Life was...
the door crashed open and Dambree stood up, reaching for the pistol.
”UNLOCK!” she yelled, leaning for it.
FTHWOOP
Dambree tumbled to the floor, her mind fuzzy. Elu and Tru fell from their chairs, stunned, Elu crying out in pain and fear. Dambree tried to move, tried to get up, but her body was nothing but a numb tingling and burning mass.
She heard Mister Mewmew snarl.
FTHWOOP
The snarl cut off and Mister Mewmew fell on the floor in front of Dambree's eyes. As she watched Mister Mewmew's body turned silver and then began to ooze into a puddle around a small skeleton-like robot.
There was silence in the cabin, except for a light pitterpat behind the couch, between the couch and the kitchen table.
She was suddenly yanked up, held in mid-air.
Dambree wished that she could scream.
The creature was disgusting. Dark purple flesh that glistened with oil or slime, the flesh looking like the tentacle things she'd seen in aquariums on field trips. It had a large pointed head, huge white eyes, and tentacles on the lower third of its face. It wore an iridescent robe that was scorched in places and stained with dark patches, and it rode on a disk of swirling purple energy.
It lifted up one many fingered hand and twitched its fingers.
Dambree felt her ears get pushed back, felt like something was touching her mind, caressing it.
Her fur stood up as it felt like a long wet tongue licked her brain inside her skull.
The tentacles parted, revealing a tightly puckered sphincter. Dambree wished, again, that she could scream, but she could barely breathe, just raggedly sporadic inhalations and exhalations. The sphincter opened wide, revealing a raw dark purple maw with row after row of triangular teeth in a spiral that led to the back of the throat.
She felt pressure on her ears, felt like her ears were being pulled apart.
Her skin split between her ears and she knew what it was doing.
It was peeling the skin from her head.
It was drooling, thick ropes of slime, the teeth moving inside the mouth.
Dambree tried to scream again as it started to lean forward.
THWACK!
The whole upper half of the being vanished in a spray of purple mist and scraps of tissue as Punee finally managed to get what she had been after for months, the kick of the heavy pistol slamming her down on her butt as her sister fell to the ground and took a deep whooping breath as her little brother and little sister clumsily got up and rushed toward her and her baby sister cried in pain and fear, surprised by the kick, the noise, and landing on her butt.
She glared at Dambree with her amber eyes as if it was her sister's fault.