Shades of Purple

Smeetsitting

"I left you instructions on your reader, on the fridge, and on the database in case you lose either of the previous ones."

"Yes, Lena."

"Do not give him any marshmallows and be sure to keep gummies away from him. He likes them, but they cause him stomach aches."

"Aja."

"If he doesn't stop crying, his blankie and a puppet he should be enough to calm him down."

"Lena, really, Rouge will be fine. He's in very good hands."

Tenn wished she could have agreed with Tallest Purple on that one.  Tallest Red and Lena departed for Vacatio shortly after on the former's personal vessel . They saw them off at the hangar, then returned to their quarters to keep an eye on Rouge. He was currently napping, but Tenn knew that hell would be unleashed once he awoke and found his mother missing.

What was bugging her was that Tallest Purple has left her alone with the smeet. He went to Tallest duty while she stayed behind at the quarters, watching comedy videos and replays of previous organic sweeps. She replayed through the Meekrob sweep, her greatest achievement up to date, over and over again. 

She wondered if there were any footages of Dren from his mission reports; Tenn surfaced through the databases for a good few minutes until she found one. One of the few reports Dren had managed to send to the Tallest before... she was momentarily torn in-between ignoring it or playing it. It had been a while ever since she saw Dren's face... eventually, the latter side won and she pressed the replay button. Dren's ecstastic expression appeared on the irkpad's screen. 

"Greetings, My Tallest! Sorry for not reporting for so long, but I wanted to make sure that the Sobrekt wouldn't trace the signal back to my base. Besides, I wanted to wait until I had a plan worthy of your time and attention." Tenn sighed bitterly. If only he knew. "I'm happy to say I've made some progress in my mission. I've captured some minor-sized Hybrekts to analyze their DNA and I managed to determine the genomes used in each. I'll be sending you a copy of the results, sirs."

Tenn remembered the issue. Dren did send the report along with some DNA samples, but sadly the Hybrekts he chose were deemed unfit for being too 'small and uncool'. She wasn't present on the Massive at that time, but she did hear that the Tallest ordered him to get DNA samples of the 'cooler' hybrids. She passed to the next report.

"I have a theory regarding the Hybrekts, My Tallest, and for that, I shall obtain a DNA from their iconic specimen: the indokuro." Tenn felt her blood starting to boil as the image on the screen changed to information sheets of said animal. Dren was gone because of them. "They hold a very important place in sobrekt culture, especially in the military area. There's a whole branch of their military that focuses on raising and training these indokuros for a great variety of tasks. I shall call again once I've succeeded, sires. Invader Dren signing off."

Tenn's squeedly spooch dropped when she noticed the date this had been sent; days before his head was delivered. There were no further reports after this one; this was the last he ever sent. She couldn't contain a sob as she clutched the data pad close to her chest, pressing her lekku against her head.

She was dropped out of her mood by Tallest Purple's voice. "Oh, Tenn!" Tenn quickly wiped her eyes and tucked the irkpad under the cushions just as he came in, holding a dark blue bottle and two cups. "Guess what? I found a nice brand of Vortian blue wine, and I figured we could try it out."

Tenn snorted. She knew from the beginning that his offer of looking after Rouge was a rather pathetic attempt to be alone with her. She'd give him credit, though. It was, unfortunately, a smart move.