Page 1 of My Big Scaly Alien Naga
1
Venom
Two rotations ago
I hissed at the Kardarian who'd stepped on my tail.He flashed his fangs at me but then bowed his head and hurried off before I could take this confrontation further.Unlike Kardarians, I was at the top of the food chain.
I curled the tip of my tail under my coils where it couldn't be stepped on by distracted idiots.Sometimes, I purposely tripped my co-workers to start a fight, but I had a deadline and couldn't afford a brawl.Maybe tomorrow.I hadn't established my dominance in a while.It was always good to remind everyone why nagas were feared across the galaxy.
Turning back to my screens, I grimaced.Whoever had written this code was an even bigger idiot than most of my colleagues.It was easy to attract brainless grunts to work on an illegal space station, but finding qualified, educated individuals was almost impossible.It's why I'd been able to rise through the ranks so quickly.
If the head of my department hadn't been a niece of Jarra, the Prime Game Maker, I may have been in charge of the entire division by now.But as things stood, I'd reached the end of the ladder, at least for as long as Briarra was alive.
I may keep her that way.For now, she was useful to me.She hadn't got this job because of her skills, but because of her connections, giving me free reign to do whatever I wanted as long as I pretended that it had been her idea in the first place.
Code flowed across the screen, turning into colourful images before my inner eye.Where others only saw letters and numbers, I saw a story.I saw roads that could be followed and doors that could be opened.In all my studies, I'd never met anyone who reported to perceive code the way I did.To them, it was a job.To me, this was the voice of a friend speaking to me, telling me stories of all that was happening on the station.
I focused on the shields surrounding the planet.They kept any nosey visitors from flying down to Kalumbu's surface while at the same time shielding us from the authorities' eyes.Jarra spent a lot to bribe the Intergalactic Authority, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.The game makers didn’t save on security expenses, which is why I had no qualms charging the hourly rates that I did.
The code was inefficient but surprisingly robust.I swept through it, updating and patching.I should pitch a full redesign to Briarra soon – give myself the chance to hide even better loopholes than the ones I’d already built.
An alert caught my eye.A new shipment had arrived and was automatically being transported to the cargo bay.Wait, no.Not to cargo.There was a diversion in the code to have it moved somewhere else.A part of the station that I was sadly very familiar with.
I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then opened a discreet window in the lower corner of my screen.
Live cargo.Fuck.
Another batch of victims for the Trials.Probably poached from unexplored planets or hijacked mid-transit by pirates.I activated a subroutine to log everything and store it on my secure, biolocked drive.No one but me could access it – not even if I was caught.
Not that I worried about discovery.Everyone here saw the naga, the fangs, the coils – and assumed I was just another predator.A criminal like all of them.No one questioned my loyalty.No one suspected I wasn’t what I seemed.
I scrolled deeper into the cargo's data.Thirty cryopods.They’d been on a long journey, travelling for many intergalactic years.They'd changed hands so often that I couldn't see what planet they'd originally come from.Somehow, they'd made it to the Kalumbu space station, sold to the game makers by a trader specialising in live cargo.The captives were designated as female Peritans.I'd never come across that species before.Later, back in my tiny cabin, I'd read up on them, but right now, I didn't have the time for research.
I hijacked a surveillance drone, sending it to follow the shipment.Through the glass top of one pod, I glimpsed a face.Female.
My body went rigid.My fangs ached.
Mine.
Not property.Not prey.
Mate.
My one and only.
I knew it in my bones.
I forced myself to stay still.To keep breathing.If I hadn’t been trained by the IA, I might’ve blown my cover right then.But I couldn’t afford a mistake, even though every scale on my body seemed to itch with the urge to wrap myself around my mate.
She’d been in cryosleep for years.She could wait a few more hours.
I began to code.Line after line.A program to monitor her pod and every mention of her and the other females.Subtle.Hidden.Safe.
I’d see her soon.
I slithered into the storage chamber an hour after my shift, sensors cloaked, scent masked.The air in the room was sharp with frost, humming with the low vibration of cryopods stacked in towering rows.
I gave them only cursory glances.I couldn't help them all.One pod was open and empty.Had the Peritan died?I made a mental note to follow up on this later.
