Private Gorgon Asteroid Fields

[Darakses]

I only eat what I hunt

- Deep inside the Mithrax Tribes Burrow -

- The Feeding Pits - ​

The mass hall was being prepared. Almost 400 hundred Cha’ta’ris were eagerly awaiting their next meal. The other half of the population had already been nourished in the previous feeding cycle about 10 hours ago.

Feeding was a holy act, it was the intake of life and passing on of energy. On average there were only 3-4 of them a week. Would they consume more, they would relinquish their resources too quickly and outgrow their supply.

A fatal mistake.

The Hunter Eldest Darakses, a necessary stakeholder behind the logistics of acquiring this food supply was meeting with a high-ranking member of the Farmer guild. This group was tasked with overseeing and distributing their available livestock. They managed the large multilayered stone gardens in which they grew the Gizka, they also controlled the “Freezing Machines” a recent invention that stored the tribe's captured prey as carbonized blocks ready to be thawed on demand.

A screeching sound combined with a humming-like clicking of his terribly fanged orifice and “Butcher” the Farmer approached the Hunter Elder “Your supply has been steady, we are exceeding expectations, together with our culling we can continue to feed”.

The four blue burning eyes of the shorter male darted towards the Cha’ta’ri across from him “Yes, the younglings look healthy, we can guarantee similar results for at least until the next Gikza harvest” Darakses grunted in Cha’tar.

Butcher, a relatively old Cha’ta’ri at around 30 years of age bowed his head in response. He was covered with nothing but a bloody rug that hung from his waist all the way to the ground, obscuring his legs. He was a strange create even for one of his species. Three of his four arms were massive and almost the same in proportions yet his lower left appendage was nothing but a wiggling stump. This was unusual for one of them as the lower extremities tended to be off-hands and thus much smaller in proportion.

His lower right limb rose and he pointed further down into the dark cave. Their eyes were naturally well-adapted to darkness and Darakses could make out one of the feeding pits in the distance, it was currently the center of attention to about six other Farmer guild members who were filling the cavity in the ground with bodies, livestock that had just been released from the carbonized prisons and were now in a sedated state, bare as they day they were born tossed into excavated feeding pits.

“A positive prospective” Butcher declared with a light snickering sound as his mandibles clicked wildly in delight. “I have not seen you feed in a long time, you can eat with the others”. His claws extended to their full length as he gestured towards the direction of the other Farmers still accumulating more fodder.

“I only eat what I hunt” Darakses replied, his gaze turned away from the spectacle and he shifted towards one of the exits that led deeper down into the burrow “I will send Hunter to report on next batch size when caught”

Butcher nodded.

The smaller hooded insectoid took off, the hunts were going well, a promising batch of young Hunters was undergoing initiation, the supply of weapons was plentiful and they had almost completed the scavenging of the fields from here to one end of the belt.

The tribe was growing well, but they could not operate in hiding at this size for much longer. They needed to expand their horizon, mark new ground in further away regions. Any more time they spend grazing in these sparse fields the more they were endangering the mantle of secrecy that held true as one of their main pillars of survival.

 

[Darakses]

Asking for a miracle

- Deep inside the Mithrax Tribes Burrow -

- The Halls of the Eldest -
​

"Last time you wanted to give no more, now you want to capture a giant" Gorn the Machinist Eldest sounded worried. Each of his four grey hairless arms was wrapped around his platted body while the insectoid's head twitched back and forth.

"A mining ship of this size! It would take much time to break apart!" he continued to complain in Cha'tar.

Across a large rectangular iron table stood another of his kind, a nightmarish creature two meters and taller. Darakses the Elder Hunter seemed calm and confident as he stood addressing the most elite of his people. He wore a dark hood over his head which expanded into a long black cape that fell over his shoulders to his knees.

The mandibles inside the hellish gap that was the Cha'ta'ris mouth snapped and hissed as he spoke in a language seemly spelled with sounds of sharpening blades and screeching on a chalkboard.

"We must grasp power, we are strong but we could be stronger, let us find the distance in the stars, explore all those worlds not barren, and feed on them."

Among the rest of those that had gathered inside the cave a collective clicking of mandibles could be heard in support of his vision.

There was no light source but the fire-ish glow inside the many eyes that filled these halls. There was one set of blazing pupils that if not as bright was much large in size.

The oldest among those present, and the chief of the Mithrax.

Theskis made a heavy thudding sound as his stone cane hit the ground, instantly silencing the rest of his kin. Decorated in robes and symbols of his clan he was by far the largest of them. Almost 5 meters high and skewered by horn-like appendages emerging from his back Thesiks the Wise was a miracle of the Outback and an incredible sight to behold.

"You speak as a Hunter should, offspring, you make Mithrax proud"

One of the four hands not holding onto his staff came to rest on the ancient table around which they had all gathered.

"But secrecy must be sustained. This task costs much time and effort, in the end, it would be paid with our truth"

To the rest of the Cha'ta'ris these were the words of a god, to Darakses the only Eldest among them with real experience outside the burrow it was a rebuckle but not a "no".

"Father" a word very rarely used by one of their kind, "I plead for your power, the magic of the old ones, for you to move the ship into the darkness far from here"

A stampeded of clicking and hissing, they fell silent yet again as their Eldest of Eldest lifted his ginormous digits.

"You ask for much, I expect you have a plan Darakses"

Having being called by his birth name instead of his bestowed title the hooded predator lifted its glowing purple scalp to stare directly into the large azure glowing pupils of the prophet-like leader of his people.

"If by the gifts of the old gods the ship will be moved we will be waiting. Hunters and Machinists take control, cut off their power, and give them to the void. Then we will bring the ship back to the fields, gut it and feed our machines"

Gorn whose racing and twitching eyes finally came to a halt, raised his gross chin abruptly and stated to the rest of the Eldest's "You want Machisints to build more Scow" his attention now focused on Darakses, "You want a fleet".