Starfire

Chapter 16: -Irksome Captors-

The trio of alien kidnappers were the only place the argument could have come from, but they had since fallen as silent as death. Wide-eyed, they shared baffled glances between themselves, almost seeming to ignore Najma, even though he was the cause for their surprise.

   He had quite a few questions, himself. If they had knocked him out to escape more easily, why had they taken him with them after all? What was the point of hurting him, if they were letting him come along anyway? Why would they risk making an enemy? Leaving him alone would have been more beneficial to their cause, if they were taking the course of not believing him to be trustworthy.

   There was one option that would explain away any questions: It wasn't impossible that they were all some sort of insane.

   After what seemed a good long while, they came to their senses, and almost as if they could read each other's minds, they snapped to their feet as a single unit. The human lady pulled a small gun from a holster at her hip, but the other two stretched down to scoop much heavier weaponry from the floor. The newest of the three guns, held by the Suna, had all-too-obviously been stolen from some unfortunate soul aboard the Intrepid.

   Najma tensed up, preparing to take flight or brace for a tussle, but he took another moment to examine the firearms. The stolen gun wasn't even loaded. The human's weapon was a fake. The Gapstig clutched a gun that would do no more than stun, at the very worst.

   It was very nearly enough to make him laugh;

   He probably had the same number of marbles left as his captors, by the looks of things.

   "What is it?" the Suna whispered to the human looking woman, eyes never leaving Najma.

   "You're supposed to be the science officer. Why don't you tell me?" the woman bit back, also in a whisper, but hers slightly louder.

   They must have also thought he didn't have ears.

   "I've never seen anything like it." The Suna replied crossly, then, much softer: "Nothing that would make sense."

   The human opened her mouth to snap another biting retort, but the Gapstig cleared his throat in a very shut up sort of manner. His acid green eyes were glaring over at his two crew-mates, then flickering watchfully back to Najma, waiting in the doorway.

   Najma took a step forward, unsure how to proceed, and the three of them jumped back to attention, straightened their spines, and re-aimed their useless weapons. They were afraid of him, and he could hardly blame them. Long gone were the days that Yu-Liang were seen and known, even as little as they had been.

   They didn't even know what he was, and if they suspected, the logical knowledge that his species was gone would tell them otherwise. It was likely what the Suna had meant: nothing that would make sense.

   Just for the fun of it, feeling irked by their fear and the fact that they'd done him such an injustice after he tried to help them, he drew back his lips in a faint snarl. If it were at all possible, they got even tenser. The Suna made a small noise in the back of his throat that was likely born of fear. They looked stiff enough to snap into pieces. 

   He scanned the room idly when he saw that they weren't about to make a move on him anytime soon. They might very well be crazy, but they didn't seem quite stupid. At least, not yet. They might just try something to change that status.

   This oblong cave of a room was just as dingy as the hallway that he'd left behind. Bottles and grime were the main attraction, along with discarded clothing, wrappers, pipes, and every other thing they had gotten their grubby hands on. Under the grime, he guessed that that room was the remains of a bridge. There were corroded buttons and knobs, most of which looked inoperable. A makeshift window had been cut into the space directly in front of the main seat. The haphazard porthole looked like it would crack and shatter with the slightest provocation. He guessed that they had added it because the holo-screen that was supposed to be projecting the outside view had broken somehow.