To Take What is Best by Paul Cesarini

To Take What is Best by Paul Cesarini

Drunin Gaarth walked hurriedly down the corridor, his scaly tail swaying back and forth with each excited step. As he moved, motion-sensing lights lit each section of the gleaming, metallic walls and just as quickly switched off the section behind him. Other crew members walked back and forth, carrying on their duties, as motion-sensing lights switched off behind them.

Gaarth was conscious that his tail still partly dragged on the floor with every other step. It was involuntary. Some 8% of his species were born with underdeveloped intrinsic muscles in their lower vertebrae, causing their tails to drag. Many, with physical therapy and conditioning, had been able to overcome this limitation. Drunin Gaarth was less fortunate. Despite years of conditioning – which was not cheap – and an equal amount of time in electro-psychoregeneration vats, his tail still dragged from time to time. It was more noticeable when he was lost in thought, which was often.

He was somewhat small for his species, even for a male. While the females were at least 4 units tall and most males were 3-3.5 units, Gaarth was 3. He weighed barely as much as an autonomous freight lifter – and his foreclaws extended only just beyond his green, webbed finger tips. He never let his physical stature dictate his ambition, though. He earned the rank of Drunin sooner than most at the academy and was perhaps 2-3 cycles aways from earning Abletto Drunin. That, he knew, was likely the highest rank he will ever earn in the Matriarchy. There were isolated examples of males in upper management, with some even governing small moons, but these were almost exclusively based on familial connections. Gaarth had no such connections. His family brood hatched from a relatively insignificant region of the Matriarchy. He was on his own, as always.

“Most Exquisiteness! Most Exalted Exquisiteness!” said Gaarth, grabbing the ends of his robes of office and quickly curling in his tail so neither got caught in the closing doors. He was out of breath, having raced to make it to the command level of the heavy cruiser. He knew he had to catch his boss while she was still in a good mood. She just basked from her restorative ultraviolet session and would be more likely to listen to reason, he felt. His reason.

“My Lady!” he said, gasping for breath while still clutching his robes. “My Lady…”

“Drunin Gaarth, what is it?” she rasped. She had her back to him as she checked the latest fuel projections. This heavy cruiser had been in orbit around the third planet of this backwater galaxy for nearly eleven cycles now – a lifetime compared to her previous contracts.

She turned and faced Gaarth, looming over him, the light behind her casting a shadow over Gaarth’s frame. Her tail was enormous, as were her freshly bleached claws. Her robes, grander and of a finer fabric, were a darker shade of purple with gold trim, signifying command. Polished beads and wooden rings dangled from her lapels and her ears. This was the Lady Fentana Vinsreich Palmetta, regional commander and daughter of First Speaker Fentana Vinsreich Margolotta, granddaughter of the Truly Frightening Fentana Vinsreich Ravenosa, whose name was etched in stone across multiple buildings and whose name adorned the very cruiser in which they stood. Palmetta, third youngest of a brood of seventeen, was not one to suffer fools. Drunin Gaarth was both male and small. His status as a fool had been cemented the moment she first met him, many cycles ago, before he ever uttered a word. His ambition and cleverness were the only things that kept her from devouring him.

“Well?” she said, the scales across her shoulders flexing up and down with each breath. Drunin Gaarth paused to compose himself. He had served under this commander for nearly five cycles now. As with all males, he was used to the intimidation, used to the dismissiveness, used to being invisible. This was the Matriarchy, after all. Yet, even after all this time, he still startled easily. He still jumped whenever some female growled at him, regardless of whether she supervised him or just assumed she should be.

Gaarth bowed before Palmetta. “My Lady, Most Exalted Exquisiteness, Regional Commander, Daughter of…”.

“Get on with it,” Palmetta said, cutting him off.

“I come to you with exciting news, My Lady,” said Gaarth, rising from his too-low bow. He held out his left wrist and pressed a few buttons on his communication bracelet, causing a projected map of Earth to flicker then appear in the air. “Here,” he gestured with right hand, pointing at the map. “Here,” he said, pointing at another location. “And here,” he said, pointing at another.

“Our industrial and agricultural productivity is up 11% in these regions for the quarter, with an anticipated additional growth of 6% for the remaining two cycles,” he beamed. He pressed more buttons, closing that holoscreen and opening a new one, just of Europe. “This particular region should yield a significant crop if we send the harvesters in soon, though inclement weather could be a factor. If all goes well, we could conceivably increase our harvest by over 40%. That should give us quite a buffer for the next barren period.”

“40%? Really?” she said, crossing her arms, tapping her left claws against her right forearm.

“Really. Weather permitting, of course,” replied Gaarth, his tail rising excitedly until it was nearly perpendicular to the floor. Small metallic, worker drones, gleaming and silent, navigated around them both. “The Matriarchy should be quite pleased, I would think.”

“Now then…” she paused and faced him. “exactly how many Hunins will we be devouring this coming cycle?”

Gaarth expected this question. It was never, “How did you increase efficiency in this specific region?” or “How did you rethink workflow for this energy consumption problem?”. She never asked about his utter mastery of spreadsheets, despite him having the best damn pivot tables this side of the galaxy. It always came down to how many Hunins they could get. For the entrails.

The Matriarchy fed off dozens of conquered species, then appropriated their technology and related infrastructure as needed to grow. The Dilintiri provided their empire with the very cruiser they walked in now, along with hundreds of other heavy and light duty battle cruisers just like it. The Dilintiri then graciously provided themselves as a meal to sustain us on our journey, he remembered, admiringly. The Bal Thoth Garoong gave the Matriarchy both sustenance and hyperdrives. The Fek (those stubborn fanatics) initially refused to provide anything at all. They remained holed-up in their fortresses, both on their moons and their outer colonies, standfastly ignoring our demands to join the Matriarchy. We finally pried them loose one moon at a time, he remembered, adapted their space elevator technology, their magneto-statis technology, and their carbonite-laced fusion bomb technology. It took nearly eleven cycles but we finally brought them to heel. Then we fed on them and devoured their entrails, of course. We take what is best from each new species, to allow our empire to flourish and to let our hatchlings thrive. Come to think of it, Gaarth thought, I believe most of the Feck were actually fed to the hatchlings.

The Hunins were different, however. Gaarth’s grandfather was a crewman on one of the first waves of ships after the population had been subdued. They set up the very first processing plants right next to those ships, alongside some odd, building-sized cubes that simply could not be moved. They ended-up building the processing plants around these obstructions thanks in part to the ingenuity of his grandfather and others like him. Within just a few cycles, Gaarth thought, wistfully, they were able ramp-up production into the thousands. The Matriarchy was soon getting daily entrail deliveries – all the highest possible quality – with minimal expenditures.

This was the mission of the Ravenosa. Hunin entrail processing. Three shifts per cycle. This was all he knew, all the Matriarchy knew, and this was why he wanted to meet with Palmetta. Gaarth was growing increasingly ashamed to be eating entrails, and so, he believed, were others in the Matriarchy. Entrails were delicious, of course, and Hunin entrails were particularly good (especially if they were very fresh!), yet Gaarth had been getting the gnawing feeling — pun intended – that there was perhaps more to life than just going from planet to planet, appropriating technology, devouring entrails, then repeating. Endlessly.

Some of these species they conquered had what appeared to be actual cultures, he thought. There were cities, parks, wonderous museums, fashion, and something referred to as ‘entertainment’. Many were technologically advanced, likely capable of independent thought, yet we never once attempted to understand or appreciate them as anything more than food. Any conversations about different species inevitably devolved into discussions about extermination or seasoning. We either ignored their histories or chose to believe they were not capable of having any, despite widespread indications otherwise.

The same applied to the Hunins. There were video-based reproductions of them pretending to interact with other Hunins, dressed strangely in many instances. He couldn’t understand them, of course. Hunin languages had always been largely impenetrable to the Matriarchy. Few if any of their languages consisted of the standard clicks or chirps and many were at frequencies either too high or too low to hear unassisted. Most of their words were just plain unpronounceable by any species he knew of, let alone understandable.

Their written words were even more inscrutable. Gaarth and others had seen entire rooms filled with row upon row of bound pages, each filled with tiny markings. It was all very impressive, no doubt, but what was any of it actually for? How, in any objective way, could these rooms have moved whatever Hunin empire that once existed forward? What was the purpose of Hunins, if not to serve as sustenance for the Matriarchy?

Gaarth’s indifference to this species changed one day when he first heard the sounds they had produced using ridiculously primitive tools. He stumbled upon these accidentally, when searching through different frequencies for any remaining pockets of wild Hunin herds. Gaarth believed Hunins may have referred to this as Mausic but could not be certain. Either way, it was captivating. Between shifts, Gaarth started exploring as much Mausic as possible. Most of it only existed in the air, though some was accompanied by video projection. Some had Hunin language integrated into it, while some did not. After painstakingly tuning the frequency of one stream, Gaarth had been particularly impressed. It repeated the phrase “Ishuttha Sherrive”. He did not know who this ‘Sherrive’ was and could not find any additional information about her. He supposed she had been a well-known female warrior, and that the administrative (or possibly ministerial?) rank of Ishuttha was something highly sought after back then. He wondered if there had also been an Abletto Ishuttha rank above that, and whether or not Sherrive eventually attained that after additional, successful campaigns had been completed. Regardless, it was all beautiful – stunningly, utterly surprisingly beautiful – though it hurt his brain if he turned up the dials too high.

The same applied for another Mausic that spoke of a great ‘Blitzkriegbop’. While this likely ancient species was unknown to him and even to the greater archives of the Matriarchy (he checked!), he suspected the Blitzkriegbop had once been a mighty, formidable force whose hatchlings inspired generations. He imagined they looked similar to the multi-legged, flying armada of Kalyeti-7 the Matriarchy subdued and subsequently devoured back in ‘34, but had no evidence to support this. Gaarth would very much have liked to have seen the battle between the Hunins and the Blitzkriegbop but was unable to find any video or holographic projections.

Yet, the question remained: Why hadn’t anyone else detected Hunin Mausic yet? It was right there, basically unavoidable. All anyone had to do was look.

If this was the only thing of value they got from the Hunins (aside from the entrails), then as far as he was concerned this surpassed the hyperdrives from the Bal Thoth Garoong. Lost in thought, Gaarth stared blankly at Palmetta, who hadn’t noticed his lack of response due to an incoming call on her wrist bracelet. She abruptly ended the call, looked up, and was somewhat surprised to see Gaarth still standing there, his tail touching the floor.

“Um… My Lady,” he stammered. “The, er, total Hunin crop should come to roughly 13,427, give or take a few, for the next cycle.” He fidgeted his claws absentmindedly over his bracelet. “We could perhaps pull in an additional 200 or so if First Palantir Digoh and crew can solve the intermittent power cycling issue in substation four, but I have my doubts on their ability to address it effectively.”

“See that it is fixed, or you will soon find yourself demoted back down to Palantir – Second Palantir! Dismissed,” she said, raising a claw to pick at one of her fangs.

She turned to leave, but Gaarth stepped forward. He definitely did not want to serve as a lowly Palantir again, much less a Second Palantir. Their entire job description consisted of ‘entrail management’ and ‘other Duties as Assigned’. Basically, they wheeled dripping entrail containers around the ship, serving them to the crew at regular intervals. It was an inherently sloppy, foul, undesirable job that he had done several cycles ago. He had paid his dues.

By engaging his superior after he had already been dismissed, he ran the risk of not only serving entrails as a Second Palantir again, but of possibly being served to the crew, himself. It was now or never, he thought. “Forgive me, Most Exalted One,” he said, nervously bowing again. “I wonder if I might have a word with you about a related subject, concerning the Hunins.”

Palmetta stopped and whirled around, saliva dripping from her fangs as she spoke. “What?! What is it that causes your tongue to continue flapping? I am expecting a communication from Balrek Na Goreth, the Abominably Large Destroyer of Gith Prime.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Gaarth. “She waits for no one – especially no male!”

Gaarth cowered, backing away a step, but held his ground. “My Lady…” he said, trying to avoid direct eye contact while flourishing his hands in broad swirls of subservience. “Most gracious and fearless leader, champion administrator of our glorious cruiser, I had a thought – an idea, if you will – that I thought I might propose to you, if you had the time and felt it worth considering, but only if…”

Palmetta lunged at him, grabbing him by the neck with her right hand, lifting him in the air. Gaarth’s communication bracelet fell off, skidded across the floor, and bounced off another nearby drone. The drone ran between her legs, and sped off down the corridor, flashing warning lights at two other nearby drones heading in their direction. They abruptly turned and sped away.

“It… It’s just…” said Gaarth, gasping for breath, trying ineffectively to pry her hand loose from his neck. His tail and feet flailed in mid-air. “What if… we found… another use… for the Hunins?”

Palmetta paused but did not lower him or remove her vise-like grip from his neck.

“What kind of use?!” she hissed.

“My Lady! A… better one…” he answered, nearly done for. His feet hung limp.

Palmetta released him, dropping him to the ground with a thud. Gaarth wheezed, rubbed his elbow, and tried and failed to stand. He lay there, gasping and coughing. She cracked her knuckles, folded her arms, then looked down at him. “For many cycles now, we have had but a single guiding principle regarding this planet, is that not so? As of yet, it has never failed us – not even once.” She paused to wipe the saliva from her jaw. “You are familiar with this, I assume?”

Gaarth was no fool. Everyone in the Matriarchy knew this mantra.

“Death,” he rasped. “Death to Hunins…” he said, weakly. He attempted to compose himself, barely managing to stand unassisted, his tail flaccid on the floor.

“Exactly,” she said. “Death to Hunins. It has been our battle cry here on this miserable rock since I was a hatchling. I have uttered these words every single day of my life since then, working my way upward, earning my stature.” She pointed to a series of red beads hanging from her right ear. “Do you know what this is?” she asked. He of course knew exactly what it was.

“It’s the Blood Calling Honor, First Rank,” he said, still trying to avert his eyes lest she throttle him again.

“…and how many beads do you see on it?” she asked, again knowing he knew full well how many beads there were and what they signified.

“Four,” he said, dusting himself off as best as he could. “There are four beads, rather than the usual three, signifying extreme heroism in the face of unmitigated loss of Matriarchal resources. The middle bead also has two gray stripes bisecting it, indicating there was loss of life involved.”

“Correct. I didn’t risk my neck that day just to throw away these beads based on some scheme of yours. We take from the Hunins what is best. Their entrails. Tell me, Drunin Gaarth, what is better than that!” Palmetta loomed over him again. Gaarth sensed another throttling coming, best case scenario.

“My lady…” he said, pausing to retrieve his bracelet then bowing and flourishing his hands again. “Allow me to explain. The Dilintiri gave us their cruisers, and their generators, yes?”

“…and their entrails,” Paletta said, nodding.

“Yes, yes, …and their entrails. The Bal Thoth Garoong gave us their hyperdrives. …and their entrails,” he said, quickly cutting her off before she could say it. The Feck gave us entrails, space elevators, magneto-statis tech, carbonite-laced fusion bombs. The Hivemind of Lessig 4 gave us transportation technology, rail guns, swimming pools (why didn’t we ever think of those before!), and our UV armor. If they had any entrails, I’m sure they would have given us those, too. In short, every species we conquered provided us with something. As you’ve said, we take what is best.”

Palmetta relaxed her posture somewhat and, for the first time in who knows how long, appeared to actually listen to a male.

“All we do is conquer species, steal their technology, and then devour their entrails. That is our whole life, our whole purpose. It represents the sum total of our entire culture. What if there was more?” he asked, a slow grin spreading across his reptilian jaws.

“More?” she responded, uncertain.

“Yes, more! What if the Hunins provided us with something other than entrails? Don’t we deserve something better than this, this squalor?!” he said, waving an arm around the corridor. “Isn’t there something more to us – as a civilization – than entrails? I don’t know about you, My Lady, but I grow tired of them. They are messy, foul-smelling. We’ve seen how other species eat things directly from trees, and how others eat cooked meat from lesser animals. Why, the Crittig Alliance even gave us those freeze-dried entrail substitutes for extended, cryo-journeys. They were delicious, as was the Crittig Alliance itself. So, why do we always focus on entrails, specifically? Surely, we can do better? Surely, the Matriarchy can do better? Surely,…”

Just then there was a whirring click of a door opening at the end of the hallway. In came Second Palantir Fargreth, wheeling in a bloody cart full of entrails.

“Entrails!” he hollered at the crew nearby. “Get your fresh entrails here!!”

Palmetta, Gaarth, and eleven other crew members immediately pounced on the cart, gnawing and gnashing their way through the gory, slippery mess. Palmetta roared at the others to stay away so she could feed first. Yet, the blood lust in the crew overtook any possible sense of decorum, rank, or even reason. They all clawed, growled, and roared as they knocked the cart over, jockeying for position. Blood, grime, and gruesomeness covered their claws, their hands, their jaws, and their uniforms, as well as the nearby walls. At least two crew members, one female and a smaller male, were seriously injured in the grisly struggle. Palmetta, Gaarth, and two others turned and devoured the entrails of the injured male, amidst his screams. The others barely noticed, as they were busy licking the inside of the cart clean of any entrail remnants, their tails vibrating and wagging wildly.

Palantir Fargreth stood back, scratching himself. He yawned, righted the cart, then checked his bracelet. “Next feeding begins in two cycles,” he announced. “Death to Hunins!” he said, pumping his fist as he wheeled the cart away. A few of the nearby crew responded with a half-hearted ‘Death to Hunins!’ before wiping the gore off their claws and getting back to their assigned duties.

A few moments later, it was all over. Palmetta, Gaarth, and the remaining crew, all lying on the hard metal floor or leaning against a blood-splattered wall, groaned and struggled to rise, shaking off their entrail-induced stupor as best as they could. Gaarth slipped in the gore of his partially-devoured crewmate and fell back into a long puddle of blood. The more he tried to stand, the more he slipped and flailed around in it. He finally righted himself, made a completely futile attempt to wipe the gore off his snout and his robes. Gaarth was disgusted.

“Ok, ok. That was just… awful. Really…” he said, shaking his head in disbelief, picking some intestines out from between his teeth. Palmetta had a big clump of liver on her left shoulder. Gaarth brushed it off onto the floor. The injured female crewmate, still clutching her wounded right arm, promptly dove down onto it, gulping it down, then quickly walked away.

Gaarth was appalled at himself. Here he is, he thought, his big moment talking 1:1 with the boss, trying to make a point about the utter lack of culture with his species, and what does he do? He jumps at the first possible instant of chewing on alien guts. How could he be disgusted by his own species when he himself acts this way? He even devoured one of his crewmates, for Feck’s sake! He hadn’t done that since he was a hatchling.

“You see?!” he said to Palmetta, raising his voice in a tone inappropriate for his stature. Palmetta would normally have been taken aback by this and would have likely even smacked him, sending him flying into the doorway Fargreth disappeared into with the entrail cart, but she was still too dazed from her entrail coma to notice this impudence.

“You see what I mean?” he repeated, waving a blood-soaked hand in front of her. “There’s got to be more to life – to our existence – than, than this! We are more than our ancestors! We are more…” he stopped to cough up a small piece of entrail, which he promptly spit out onto the floor. Yet another crewmate quickly scooped that up and devoured it. Gaarth rolled his eyes. “We are more than our DNA! Our lives, our existence, should stand for something beyond a mere, a mere…” he waved his arms, grasping futilely for the right word.

“Biological imperative?” replied Palmetta, nonchalantly, licking the blood off her claws.

“Yes! Yes, exactly!” he said, clearly exasperated. “We have no culture, unless you count ‘amateur entrail photography’ but that’s honestly a pretty questionable hobby, really. We have no cities aside from various ‘command centers’, no videos other than ones related to entrail preparation or processing, and no entertainment of any sort. We lack intellectual curiosity. We have no sense of the creative at all.”

“My Lady, we have no Mausic,” he said, emphatically, folding his gore-covered arms. He intentionally made direct eye contact with Palmetta.

“Mausic?” she said, repeating his words back to him.

“Yes…” replied gaarth. “Mausic.”

“What is this ‘Mausic’?”

“Allow me to explain.” He was about to launch into a detailed lecture of the history of the Blitzkriegbops, the Drakeandtemz, the mighty Jezdinbeepers, and other Hunin conquerors, then stopped himself. “On second thought…” he said, running over to a nearby communication console, grabbing a headset, “just listen.” He pressed several buttons on the console, then on the headset, then on his bracelet. He then stood directly in front of Palmetta, holding the headset. “With your permission, My Lady.”

Palmetta still did not see where this was going but nodded in consent. She lowered her huge head, her muzzle full of serrated teeth nearly touching Gaarth’s face. He could feel her breath on him. He reached up and stood on the balls on his feet, using his tail for balance, then positioned the headset on her ears. “Just a moment,” he said, pressing more buttons on his bracelet, pulling up another holoscreen. He then scrolled through several tabs on the screen, pausing on some.

“No,” he said, dismissively, before swiping to other tabs. “No. Maybe. No. Yes..? No, no, too pedestrian. No.” Gaarth then paused on one tab and a slow smile spread across his face. Palmetta looked at Gaarth, then at the tab, then back at Gaarth. She adjusted the headset around her ears somewhat.

“Yes!” Gaarth exclaimed. He pressed two virtual buttons on the holoscreen then stood back, rested his hands on his hips, and looked smugly at Palmetta, waiting. Her expression did not change. Until it did. She clasped the headset with both hands. Her eyes darted back to Gaarth, who was nodding his head.

“What… is… this?” she whispered.

“My Lady, High Administrator of the mighty Ravenosa, Most Exalted of the Sol system, this is the Kallmimaibees.”

Palmetta was stunned. She stood there frozen in the gruesome, gore-filled corridor as various crew members walked back and forth, carrying out their duties. She had never heard anything like this before in her entire life. Headsets were exclusively used for navigation, shipboard communications, entrail reports, administrative purposes, and other Matriarchal business. What she heard now did not fit any of those categories. She looked around the room, trying to make sense of what she heard, then pulled off the headset, stared at it, and looked back at Gaarth again. He took a half step back, mentally preparing to be throttled, flung, or perhaps devoured.

“What do you know of these Kallmimaibees?” she hissed. “How big was their empire? Their fleet?” Gaarth was about to respond but she cut him off. “Are they still in this sector? How big of a threat to the Matriarchy are they?!”

Gaarth paused before answering. He did not quite know how to respond. “They existed many, many cycles ago, My Lady,” he said, slowly. “They were mighty in their time but are no longer a threat to our great Matriarchy.”

Just as quickly as she removed the headset, she put it on again. “Fascinating.” she said, still listening, her eyes looking far off in the distance, her huge hands covering the headset over her ears. “What else have you discovered?”

“Well…” said Gaarth, pressing more buttons on his bracelet. “There’s this.”

Palmetta slowly raised her head, her pupils dilating. She could not believe it.

“W-What…” she stammered, unable to grasp the sounds she heard.

“This, My Lady,” he said, gravely. “…is the GebbaGebbaHeyzs.”

“The GebbaGebbaHeyzs,” she said, utterly transfixed by the sounds. Her eyes darted back to Gaarth again. “They are part of the Gebba-6 Continuum of the Kaltric-D system, yes?” she said, nodding her head at Gaarth, hoping she was correct. “We defeated them eons ago, I thought. My grandmother told me great stories of their devouring. If they were to return…”

“No, Exquisiteness, I am afraid they are not connected to the Gebba-6 Continuum, or the Haize 611-A Regime, I’m afraid. They are… unique. They were fierce warriors, highly skilled at their craft. I believe they all carried electrically charged axes.”

“Axes,” she gasped, barely whisperering now, still intently listening to the Mausic. “Where… where can we get these axes?” she asked, to no one in particular. “These could be immensely beneficial in our next campaign. What else?” she asked, insistently.

Gaarth pressed another button.

“The Cardi-B,” he said. She quickly looked back at him and was about to speak. He nodded negatively.

Gaarth pressed another button.

“Bowie,” he said, simply.

“Bowie?” she asked, alarmed and bewildered.

“Bowie,” Gaarth pressed another button.

“Jazz,” he said, staring back at her. Palmetta’s eyes widened and her lower jaw hung open slightly. Gaarth pressed another button.

“Folk,” he said, impassively. Palmetta paused then took a half step backward. Her hands did not leave her ears. Not even looking down to his wrist, Gaarth pressed another button.

“Rhythm and blues.” He pressed another button.

“Celtic Punk.” Another.

The two stood there in the corridor, not speaking at all. Palmetta’s arms slowly dropped to her side. Another drone squeaked by, followed by two more crew members who glanced up at her then quickly averted their eyes and quickened their steps.

Palmetta slowly removed the headset and handed it to Gaarth, who pressed two more buttons on his wrist. She stood motionless in front of him. Gaarth smiled again. Then, she walked back over to the communication console, pressed a sequence of buttons on it, pulled up another holographic screen, then pressed three more buttons there. A small, red light blinked on and off.

She turned to face him.

“Drunin Gaarth, you have earned yourself a new position.”

Gaarth, exhaling, beamed with pride and relief. Abletto Drunin, he thought. Maybe my own moon! Finally. “Thank you, My Lady,” he said, infinitely pleased, bowing down on one knee. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

“I believe I do,” she said, pausing. “Your new commission shall be Palantir. Third Palantir.”

“Yes. Wait, what?” Gaarth stood up and looked around quickly, hopeful this was some sort of sad joke. Then he remembered: the Matriarchy does not joke. “Palantir? Third Palantir?! There is no Third Palantir!” he said, panicked.

“There is now,” she responded. “You will serve as Assistant to Second Palantir Fargreth.”

“Fargreth?!” said Gaarth, incredulous, his tail glued to the floor. “That bloated son of a Feck? All he does is shovel entrails into carts! He doesn’t know his claw from his cuticle! The man is incapable of independent thought! He… he probably wakes up in a pool of his own saliva every morning! Surely, you can’t expect me to just start working for that fool! I… I’m the highest ranking Drunin on this ship. My pivot tables…”

“You were the highest ranking Drunin,” she said, correcting him, crossing her arms. “Now, you are the lowest ranking Palantir in the Matriarchy.”

She leaned toward him, jabbing her index claw at his sternum. “The Matriarchy must never know of this Mausic. And it never will. It is too… enticing. Too decadent for us, for our civilization. It would destroy us from the inside. Our entire empire would crumble in a single spawning generation. Our enemies would devour us, one hatchling at a time! They would feast on our entrails!”

At the end of the corridor, the door behind Gaarth slid open. Two guards marched toward them, expressionless. Palmetta looked behind Gaarth, at the guards. “You are correct in that you will not start working for Fargreth, however. At least, not immediately.”

Gaarth quickly looked at the guards on either side. Both were heavily armed females, each bearing the Blood Calling honorific – 3 beads each, the middle of which had one gray stripe. Neither of them looked at Gaarth. Palmetta motioned to the guards.

“Take this tail-dragging male away!” she said, raising her voice. “Lock him into Sublevel-6, in one of the Total Darkness cells. No UV lights.” The guards quickly seized Gaarth by the arms, their claws digging into him.

“Sublevel-6?! Wait – no UV lights at all?? How will I bask?! No, um… hold on! My Lady!” Gaarth pleaded, kicking at the guards as they dragged him off. “Most glorious and divine commander! Exalted Exquisiteness, whose beauty and leadership knows no equal throughout the seven galaxies! It was all a ruse!” he stammered. “I… I love entrails!” he shouted, nodding furiously, looking at both guards, futilely trying to get them to agree with him. “Death! Death to the Hunins! Death to Huuuuunins!!!” The doors at the end of the corridor quickly opened as the guards approached, then closed again, catching the tip of Gaarth’s tail momentarily before pulling it through.

Palmetta stood there in the empty corridor for a moment, then headed toward the command center. She paused. Then, she doubled back and picked up the headset from the communications console. She looked it over, slowly rubbing her huge, clawed finger along the top of it.

She quickly glanced up and down the corridor, then pulled up a holoscreen from her own communication bracelet, flicked through rows of menus, and tapped a button. Palmetta donned the headset and turned, walking briskly back to the command center.

Her tail fluttered as she moved, the sounds of Ella Fitzgerald echoing between her ears.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Paul Cesarini 2025

Image Source: blauthbianca from Pixabay