On the other side of the door, Azdrei’in came upon yet another kind of creature he’d never seen before. These ones were large with short hair in shades of black and white and brown. They didn’t smell pleasant either. At the sight of him, they started making loud noises of distress, and he stiffened, his index finger hovering over the trigger of his gun to fire it at a moment’s notice. Although the racket the large beasts were making put him on edge, the only species he had clearance to shoot were the Earthlings. As long as the other animals didn’t prove to be hostile, his leaders wanted them to leave them all untouched, so they wouldn’t affect the planet’s ecosystem before they understood how it functioned. They had killed off the last apex species in order to take over, but his people weren’t killers without a purpose. The only other times they took another creature’s life was to eat or to protect themselves.

So, he turned away from the lumbering beasts and stepped inside the structure, searching for the smaller creature he’d detected from a distance. There was a chance it was just the offspring of one of these animals, but he was going to make sure before he moved on. If there was an Earthling here, he needed to kill it to keep the other Lunvalgans safe. From the surveillance they had conducted a year ago, they’d determined that the other kind was too barbaric to leave alive. The dominant species on this planet was advanced enough to have developed weapons like his people had, but they used them on one another and lived disharmoniously with their own world. They were like a plague that was better off wiped out, so the Lunvalgan colonists could move in without fear of being attacked.

Suddenly, he sensed rapid movement behind him that reminded him of the way the Earthling in the city had felt when it had sprinted toward him. He shifted his weight to turn around, but the source of the motion was already too close for him to react. Before he even had a chance to get a look at it, he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head that made his vision go black, and he staggered forward, collapsing onto the ground.

--

The first thing Azdrei’in was aware of when he began to regain consciousness was a dull ache emanating from the base of his skull. He groaned and lifted a hand to touch the sore spot, only to find that it was wrapped in a snug cloth. The sensation was strange enough to raise a warning flag in his mind, and he remembered abruptly that he’d been attacked while he had been hunting down an Earthling. If he’d had time to think about it, he would have found it strange that he was still alive when his assailant had had every opportunity to finish him off after he’d passed out. Instead, he reacted in a panic, his fight-or-flight instincts kicking in as his eyes snapped open and he jumped to his feet.

Upon standing up so quickly, his leg bumped against a table, knocking over the cup of water sitting on top. The sound startled him, and his hand flew to his waist, where he kept his gun. Only this time, the weapon was gone. He bristled with the realization that he’d been unarmed while he’d been unconscious, his eyes darting over the room he was in as he evaluated where he was. It was a different location than the place where he’d been hit, so he had to have been moved. However, his surroundings now were perplexing. He would have thought that the Earthling would have locked him up as a prisoner, but this room looked more like a home than a cell. He’d been left on a soft seat without any restraints, and there was even a dish with something that looked like food as if the Earthling had tried to feed him. He wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

Belatedly, he noticed he wasn’t alone either. There was sound coming from nearby along with the warmth of another living creature—or two, if he included the smaller animal he sensed as well. He turned toward the source tensely, prepared to fight back if it tried to attack him again. To his added bemusement, it didn’t look as hostile as the last Earthling he’d killed. It was eating its own meal next to a small, fluffy animal in a container. The unexpected sight made him pause, but he recovered after a second and narrowed his eyes. Whether the Earthling looked dangerous or not, it had still knocked him out and taken him to a location he wasn’t familiar with. He flexed his clawed hands at his sides. He may not have had a long-range weapon anymore, but he still had the tools he’d been born with. The only thing that kept him from striking first was the fact that it seemed like this creature had tended to his injury. It was confusing to him, since he’d been told that all Earthlings were ruthless savages.

“Where am I?” he snapped, still on edge even though he didn’t make any moves to kill his abductor… yet. As soon as the words left his tongue, he wavered, realizing that it was highly unlikely that the Earthling spoke the same language that he did. [i]Stupid,[/i] he chided himself, lifting his hand to touch the bandages wrapped around his head again. It was going to be difficult to communicate with a being from another planet, but he was determined to find out what was going on and get his gun and communication device back.