It was so adorable when it was frightened. 

Talax crawled around the small creature towards the front of her craft, and even though she had returned her scales to their pleasant shimmering purple shade, the human didn’t react. 

It must have a remarkably limited visual spectrum, she mentally noted before teasing her catch further.

It spun wildly and aimed at anything that the glow of its pistol illuminated, and she noticed its pupils almost fully dilated. It really couldn’t see a thing. 

“Let me help you out,” Talax taunted, her words dripping with adoration. 

This only seemed to scare the poor creature more, and it looked down its primitive gunsights to where it believed the sound came from. It didn’t need to search for very long, as Talax floated between her prey and the cockpit canopy, her massive body obscuring the human’s view of the stars beyond. It screamed again.

“What are you!? Why are you on my ship!? Don’t move an inch, don’t think for a SECOND I won’t fucking use this!” Robin demanded, her voice faltering somewhat. 

Talax grinned wide, resisting the urge to coil around the little human and keep her for herself. She would claim her prize after she thoroughly enjoyed it, Talax thought to herself. 

“I am your new owner. I believe this answers both questions, yes?” She teased, savoring the look of confused horror that came over Robin. Talax realized that if she concentrated on it hard enough, she could almost feel the inner workings of the small alien’s mind as it turned the information over and tried to process the situation. 

“No, it doesn’t, and no, I’m not! I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I’m the one with the gun, and you’re on my ship. That means I call the shots. I don’t know what kind of fucked up culture you come from where owning people is something you do, but I want no part of it. Get off this ship, or I’ll start an interspecies war right here!”

The human raised the energy factor on her pistol, gripping it tightly with both hands as if she were afraid it would jump away. Talax decided to oblige the small, decidedly feral creature. 

“You wish for me to leave you? After I’ve come so far to catch you? Unlikely.” This elicited a shaky gulp from her prey.

“As for your weapon, I would advise against firing it. Even if you don’t miss and punch a hole through the hull, it would be ineffective against me. I would not take such measures if I was not certain of my safety.”

She thought for a long moment at this and stared at Talax, trying to make out the details of her figure in the low light, probably trying to decide if she should believe her or not. 

“Bullshit, you’re bluffing,” Robin claimed, and though she tried to maintain a cool and unintimidated front, Talax could hear her heart rapidly beating, and could see the warmth spreading across her small body. The human didn’t even believe what it was saying.

Talax grinned widely and lightly stepped closer. “You are welcome to test that assumption if it would please you.”

Robin squealed, scrambling to retreat deeper into her ship, keeping the trembling weapon between Talax and her. “Stop… stop where you are!” she insisted as she backed away, placing her finger on the trigger. 

Talax braced for the shot, ready to spring on the creature and disarm it, but the poor, frightened thing wouldn’t fire. She admired its bravery. 

“How can I collect you if you don’t allow me closer to you?” She lightly cocked her head as she replied, for the moment stopping before the small creature. 

“Collect? I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that there’s been some error in translation. I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t know you, and would rather be left alone, so if you wouldn’t mind leaving however you got in that would be ideal,” Robin rushed, holding her aim and using her legs to propel herself backwards. 

Talax cloaked her skin and watched in predatory glee as the human began to panic, her aim wandering around the cabin.

“I know you, Robin, and you will come to know me.” 

_________________________________________________________

Robin knew that she was awake, so she couldn’t be having a nightmare. There was no way this was really happening though, right? Maybe being alone in the black for so long had finally gotten to her mind, and she had hallucinated the whole thing.

It had been almost ten minutes since she had seen or heard anything from outside her hiding place in the life support system closet. Her train of thought had long since derailed, so she tried to focus on her options.

The various gauges were stuck in place, so it was impossible to know how long she had before the emergency oxygen ran out. She had to get the power back on, get the atmosphere recyclers working, fix the drives, and get the hell out of this system. 

Could she simply dismiss that as a hallucination?

Robin waited a few more minutes huddled in the dark, without hearing anything except her own soaring heart rate. She was sure that, if she could see her own knuckles, they would be white, clutching the grip of her antique plasma slug-thrower which had about three rounds in it, total.

She tried to think realistically. She had been alone in her ship for at least a year and a half, her last human contact an impersonal and voice-only transmission thanking her for her purchase and to come again soon.

Reasonably, there was a nonzero chance that her imagination had simply gotten the better of her again. Robin charged down the pistol and stuffed it, still hot, back into her pocket. Unclasping an emergency repair kit, she felt around for the flashlight, clicked it on, and stuffed the case under her arm.

Besides, she thought as she unlocked the door and slid it open, her eyes scanning the hallway and seeing no space aliens; if this was real, she wouldn’t want to be remembered for killing an alien during first contact. 

She floated down the corridor, clearing every corner with the flashlight, still slightly on edge. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, and before she knew it she had arrived at the cavernous power core room. A quick flashlight sweep confirmed that she was alone. Opening the repair case and removing a diagnostic instrument, Robin inserted it into the data port in the console and… it jammed. Shaking it vigorously, trying to free it, Robin cringed as the tool snapped in the data port. Holding the light closer to the small slot in the console, she could just barely make out a familiar oozing, black ichor filling the port and gluing the fragment in place. 

From somewhere in the room, somewhere uncomfortably close, the same voice from earlier spoke as clear as day.

“Did you forget about me, Robin, dear?” 

She flailed for a moment in the lack of gravity, trying to reach for the console to spin around, but found no purchase. She struggled helplessly in the air, unable to control her movement in zero gravity, when she helpfully remembered Newton’s law of action and reaction. She took her hefty repair kit in both hands, stowing her flashlight in her teeth, and hurled the case between her legs, sending her drifting slowly up towards the power core control console.

She swung the beam of the flashlight over the wide room as she slowly rotated in the air, finally pointing the light directly above her and panicking at the sight. Something massive appeared out of thin air directly between her and the console she was moments from colliding with. It had semi-transparent glittering purple skin, a dimly glowing green head with two large lime green eyes, and round, flattened plates adorning either side of its head like a cobra hood and trailing down the back of its neck. It must have been at least twelve feet tall, with three sharp talons on each hand, and two even larger ones on its digitigrade feet. It grinned wide as she helplessly tumbled in the air towards it. 

“You’re so fascinating to observe up close,” it said, tilting its head lightly. 

Before she could think, Robin’s hand shot into her pocket for her gun, but she couldn’t feel it there. The alien was getting closer. Her hands frantically patted down every pocket for her weapon, coming up empty. It seemed to react to the abject terror on her face at this realization, grinning wider and reaching its two oversized arms out to catch her as she tumbled into it. She could afford one final desperate act of rebellion, taking her hefty flashlight in two hands like a baton and swinging it wildly at the face of the creature as she drifted the final few feet.

_________________________________________________________

Talax was surprised at the force with which the small creature could strike, but the blunt instrument did no damage. “If I was as fragile as you are, human, that might have hurt,” she teased.

She wrapped one hand around the creature’s small torso, pinning its writhing arms tightly to its sides, and used her other hand to take the human’s improvised weapon from it. It resisted, as expected, struggling fiercely in her grip and shouting.

“Let…me..go!” It grunted between bouts of desperate wriggling, starting to tire. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?” It tried to reason with her.

“Not so bold without your little toys, are you?” Talax held the human closer to her face, enjoying its look of momentary fear, as if it thought she was about to eat it headfirst.

“I want back what was rightfully mine, but since you have atomized my possessions, you will replace them,” she explained. 

Her human’s face scrunched in confusion, paused for a moment, then dawned with the realization of what it had done. “The asteroid? How could I have known it was yours? I just needed the hydrogen in it, I swear I didn’t know! Look, if you let me go, I can try to get you back what I destroyed, okay? What even was it, anyway?”

“Human, you misunderstand. What was lost cannot be restored. It was valuable in its uniqueness. It is fortunate that you are more intriguing, more unique, and far more valuable. You will make a fair replacement,” Talax finished with a grin. 

“What?” Robin replied softly, looking incredulously back up at her. “I… surely we can talk about this, right? You can’t just lay claim to me and expect me to go along with it!”

“Oh, little human, we will talk for as long as you desire,” Talax slightly squeezed her catch, earning a small yelp from her. “But I’m afraid my claim to you is perfectly legal. Do not be afraid of me, Robin. You will never again know suffering, I will take good care of you,” she assured the little creature. 

It seemed to take issue with this, flusteredly trying to collect its thoughts. “You can’t just… I’m not… What are… Please stop… you can’t do this to me! There has to be something else you can take, right? There’s got to be something else you want!” She resumed her furious straining, wriggling enough for Talax to need to wrap her other hand around the human to secure it.

Talax moved them into the habitation section of the cramped little ship, much faster than the human was capable of in zero gravity. 

“Stop fighting me.” Talax commanded the human in an unyielding tone, and the girl listened, pausing for a moment to pant and allow her heart to slow down. 

_________________________________________________________

Its skin was remarkably soft and squishy for an alien twice her size, softer than Robin thought it would be, but with a grip as solid as iron. It must have stolen the gun right out of her pocket while it was invisible… how long had it been in there with her, watching her? 

Her thoughts returned to the problem at hand, which was currently the two massive, vice-like, clawed alien hands squeezing her arms to her sides. If it could talk, Robin figured, it could be reasoned with. She was just about to make her case for her freedom when her captor spoke again, effortlessly commanding her undivided attention.

“That’s much better. Now, can I put you down without you attacking me or trying to run off, or will I need to restrain you?” It asked, holding her face uncomfortably close to its own, peering into her eyes. 

“That depends on what you’re planning to do to me,” Robin replied dryly, quickly averting her gaze from her captor’s. 

The creature paused, lightly tapping its claws against her back, as if in thought. “I… hadn’t thought that far ahead, to be honest.”

“What?! You mean you boarded and disabled my ship, abducted me, and you don’t even know what you want with me?!” Robin exclaimed, unable to hold back a light chuckle from the absurdity of it. 

“That’s not what I said, human,” the creature said, its words dripping with venom. “I know exactly what I want with you, and I have many ideas on how best to draw it out. You need not worry Robin, I will not allow harm to come to you. Though… I didn’t anticipate I would collect you so quickly, I did hope to savor that… No matter. We will proceed ahead of schedule,” it smiled wide, sending a chill down Robin’s spine. 

“You’re… you’re a pirate,” Robin spat to the alien holding her tightly, to which it made a scratchy chortling sound, something akin to a laugh.

“An antiquated term, but accurate.”