"No! Get him strapped."
"No amount of credits is worth this. Let me out to get a pistol, sand humper!"
"And have the captain kill us? He's worth too much. Get him in the chamber, you withered member."
I feel flecks of their slime flinging on my fur as they scramble around me and continue to hurl insults at each other.
There's another pain along my upper body and a strap starts to tighten around my shoulders. I force my eyes open. My vision is swimming, but I can make out the wide terrified eyes of a genali.
He is easily within range of my claws and although I am slow and stupid from the drug I'm still plenty fast enough to reach my bound hands forward and slice four gashes across his almost nonexistent throat. He lets go of the strap he was holding, his webbed hands darting up to try to contain the gushing torrent of gray blood.
He gurgles out a sound of disbelief and despair and a purr rumbles to life in my chest for a moment before reality reasserts itself.
The strap continues to tighten as the screams of the remaining slimes echo even more loudly off the slick white walls. Their impersonal aesthetic makes me as sick and enraged as it always has. Ever since I was old enough to research my sire's killers.
A nearly powerless species, but made strong by their seemingly endless numbers.
Like the swarms of insects that flow in undulating, deadly waves on my home planet: easy to squash alone or in pairs, but if you're caught without proper protection they'll pick your bones clean long before anyone can assist you.
I don't have easy access to any other slimes and my tail is held tight against me. It wriggles where it's wrapped multiple timesaround my waist, just above my sheathe. Another strap must be around it. I shakily lift my head, my mane disheveled enough to block one eye.
I can still make out another genali.
He must think he's out of range and obviously knows nothing about the way my people fight. Everyone focuses on our tails and teeth.
Few think of our paws.
I kick out my back legs. The claws that extend from just below the knob at the back of my knee rake across his soft, wet stomach. I roar an inarticulate battle cry as his entrails start to puddle on the floor and he sinks down to join them. He continues screaming, the wound fatal but one that leaves him with plenty of time to fear his impending death.
I feel a rush of satisfaction, but then I'm rising and not of my own will.
The straps cut into me as they take my weight, my flexible spine making it so my side is the last to leave the blood soaked floor. I still don't have enough control of my body to resist, let alone keep them from raising me up like a trussed up, limp bundle of fur.
The genali across the room at the controls is shaking violently. A puddle of liquid under him betrays the depths of his fear.
I roar at him, promising a violent end as soon as the rest of my paralysis lifts. Then I start to swing sideways, the movement spinning me away from him.
I see what I'm headed for and wriggle as much as I'm able, pulling my tied-together limbs back as far as I can in an attempt to slice through the straps.
They've cobbled together a cryogenic chamber large enough to hold me. It's one of the very few ways to trap our species, though even fewer have been able to force a male into one. Ironically, it works because we were the ones who designed them.
One of the most essential tools of our abandoned empire, now one of our few cages. Fitting.
This one looks like a death trap of hastily printed and assembled parts. Clearly they didn't expect to capture me and they plan to put me in an untested chamber.
I'm snarling in rage as the genali moves me above it.
The sight of it is enough to break the last vestige of control over the bubbling fury. It wipes away rational thought. The straps creak under my maddened flailing, but don't give way. My roar turns into a long cry of pure outrage.
I must escape or die trying and I'll kill anything that tries to stop me.
As I spit and thrash, one of my claws catches the strap around my flank. The bottom part of me crashes down into the unlinedchamber, flares of pain darting through my rump and up my spine from the impact.
Then I drop all the way in with just a nanosecond between my fall and the glass sliding closed above me.
I try to escape but all I manage to do is leave long scores in the cover before the needles push between my scales and the hiss of the gasses start. I let out another roar, which is almost deafening in the small space.
Then . . . darkness.
