"Is this the useless mutt that killed me with a single blow?"

"Impossible!"

Light flooded his vision as his eyelids fluttered open,

"How dare you!"

A smooth porcelain face appeared in his line of sight.

Vashki.

K tried to grab his blaster but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel his body,

"What?"

"You kill a mighty tigress such as myself and you die to the stopping of your mortal heart?" The Vashki spat, disgust rolling off its words as it spoke,

"Pathetic, utterly pathetic...no, I will not allow it! I will not allow you die such a shameful death!"

Luituka?

How was she still alive?

He had killed her...

Before he could piece the pieces, a heavy fist struck his chest.

His vision blurred at the impact.

"Shameful!"

Bam!

"I will not allow the one who killed me die such a shameful death!"

Bam!

"Unacceptable! A soldier dies in battle! Be it a fist through his guts or a weapon lodged bone deep in him!"

Bam!

"Get up you pathetic mutt!"

Bam!

Another blow hammered into his sternum.

Bam!

Pain exploded through his chest.

"You hear me, mongrel?!"

Bam!

Nothing.

His lungs refused to obey.

His heart remained silent.

Luituka clicked her tongue.

"So useless."

She crouched before him, porcelain face inches from his own.

"You crushed my pride." Her lip curled, "And yet...you intend to let a lump of flesh defeat you?"

Her fist glowed.

A dull crimson current wrapped around her forearm before she drove it into his chest once more.

THOOM.

The impact wasn’t physical this time.

It felt as though something reached inside him.

K’s eyes shot open.

His back arched violently.

A heartbeat.

One.

Then another.

THUMP!

THUMP!

THUMP!

And then nothing.

The beating of his heart stopped as quickly as it started. Light fading from his eyes again.

"The nerve of this insect!"

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

"Have you no shame, dying such a dishonorable death!"

BAM!

"An insult! This is an insult!"

BAM!

Air tore into his lungs in a ragged gasp.

He lurched upright, coughing hard enough that blood splattered across the space he floated in.

His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape. He searched around, eyes consumed fiery red, for where he had heard Luituka but all that met him was an orchestra of wailing and rings bursting.

Shira was still floating but now drifting from her larger form.

Grabbing onto a disintegrating ring, he launched himself forward boosting off some nearby rings until he was close enough to reach her.

"Come on"

He launched her , kicking her towards the giant. And as soon as she made contact, the whole space stilled then began to pulse.

Steady at first then faster until everywhere was thrumming with energy.

The chains that held her down began to tremble and break into pieces as she assumed a praying position.

"I will bring the fire from the ages past upon those who have done this to me and my people."

The rings nearby wailed in unison,

"Save us!"

"We prayed! We worshipped you!"

"Why now?"

"Why have you forsaken us?"

"Ahh! It burns!"

"Mother watch how they burn your loyal servants! Watch how our own kind persecute us!"

And then one voice spoke, one he’d recognize anywhere and everywhere.

"Mother...they took my dignity away from me...I’m left in my own pool of tears and blood. I prayed Mother, I sang your songs. And yet, here I am, miserable."

It was Thira.

K pushed through the pulses, finding the ring the voice came from.

"Why did it have to be me? Why did it have to be him? Is this my punishment for coveting a U’Kan? Is this your way of punishing me?"

"Unfair...you’re so unfair, selfish, cruel! You do not care about us! You never did!"

"It hurts..."

The ring sat dull, disintegrating slowly. Thira’s sobs emanating from it.

Shira continued praying words of vengeance, more chains snapping loose. The space around them fracturing as well.

"I can’t have this child...I fear I would not be able to look at it...so much pain"

K grabbed the ring and pushed towards Shira.

"What now?"

The praying ceased. Shira leaned forward, cupping her hands,

"You must return, your soul is already fading"

With a gentle whoosh, she blew me out of void.

K tumbled mid-air as he rose above the darkness into the white void and beyond it.

—————

Kagu paced around her outlet, her interface glitching as she tried to digest the feedbacks of K’s vitals.

He was dead one minute.

Alive the next.

Then dead again.

And now he was back, covered in sweat and spasming.

A few hours back, she had integrated herself into a drone system from the ship, scanning the settlement and trying to find the body K was so fixated on finding.

She had come across many mysteries, many of which she wanted to tell K. She had rushed back only to find K, buck naked in a circle of crushed sapphire stones and the women of the settlement chanting feverishly.

Praying.

Iniko was placed opposite him, their heads touching. She seemed to be in a trance, her eyes rolled back as she jerked, wailed and screamed endlessly...also naked.

Damn, her pecs were magnificent no matter how many times she scanned them!

"Are you some sort of spirit?"

A child, a girl, walked up to her outlet.

The people of this planet were deeply religious, devoting their lives, souls and bodies to the cause of their existence.

"No, I’m an database research artificial intelligence."

She smiled, dismissing the holograms before her, "I am a friend of the ’Other Kind’."

The Other Kind wasn’t a special being. If one were to put in her terms.

But to these people, the Other Kind was their purpose.

What puzzled her the most was how these people reproduced continuously without a Y chromosome.

Though that wasn’t all.

During her search, she found a crater hidden deep in the forest. Calling it a crater was an understatement really.

It was the size of a giant woman who fell flat on her stomach. The crater formation dated back to many years ago and so did the oldest fossil she was able to find of these people.

They either started existing and the crater was formed.

Or they were born from the crater.

"How long will this take?"

She tried to stand on her toes, not like it would help her see better but still,

"K..."

She had so much to tell him.

"Please wake up."