The Traveller Effect (LGBTQ+)

6 ✖ Ants

Song of the chapter: Lewis Blissett - Killing Butterflies

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It flared its nostrils like a predator, releasing out gas at various terminals. It was a living machine, prowling through the darkest reaches of space. It growled and squirmed, the living metal abiding by their masters' wishes. It glowed brightly in various eye-straining colours before dimming down, repeating this action at various intervals. It was breathing to a timeous rhythm, recycling the gas of the ship so its inhabitants could carry on without a care.

It was called the Parent Ship as it had a simple task: to care and nurture the creations that dwelled inside it. The creatures that inhabited it may not even have been remotely close to the species the ship was, but it had imprinted each of them as one of its own. That was how it knew that one of them was missing.

The throaty language was tossed around the ship at low decibels, adding along to the ship's natural groaning. The pale species roamed around in a mixture of distress and annoyance, their arched feet adding to their sprinting speed as they hurried along the ship.

It had been damaged.

The snowy creatures searched along the hull and interior for any small crevices of injuries they have missed, dragging their boney fingers down the wounds of their parent. The maximum damaged sustained was near the prison wing where prisoner 6395T had escaped from not too long ago. In the process of their escape, they had not only blown open their own cell but various surrounding ones as well.

The prisoners had swiftly taken care of the guards and surrounding ship personnel, but not quick enough to launch a full-frontal attack on the rest of the ship. They were now barricading themselves in the prison wing, knowing fully that a squadron of armed fighters was right outside the wing.

They knew they had been played for fools by the single one of their kind that had managed to escape, having all been used as decoys as they stole a ship and flew off deep into space. They had been an incredible strategist, fully predicting the actions the other prisoners would take and how Command would react to the riot. They were truly the cream of the crop from their generation of spores in that regard, but there was a madness to their logic that had brought them down to their homicidal tendencies.

They were truly a force that could drag the sane down to hell, that Dengr'Axnn.

Command did not know which situation was the more pressing one: the prisoners that had barricaded themselves from the rest of the ship, or Dengr'Axnn's escape. Instead, they split up the workforce and had the physically-able staff handle the prisoners and the intellectuals search for Dengr.

Both cases were not looking good.

"Favourite One," came the deep groaning of the pale species' language, deep from within their diaphragm and when released rippled through the air. "There has been development,"

"Oh?" the leader of the ship, they who sat on top of Command for many years now, looked curiously down at the fighter who had approached them.

"The prisoners are making demands," this was amusing to the Favourite One.

"And what makes them think they are able to make demands?" they sat their elbow onto the throne-like chair's armrest, their head resting comfortably on top of their own fist.

"It seems they have hacked into the ventilation system. They are threatening to alter the nitrogen levels," which was a pressing matter, as it was the main compound their bodies needed to survive. Having no digestive system, they had to gain energy from elsewhere and the acids able to form inside their bodies due to nitrogen was vital to this process.