[h2]Skrass’theth Akhellas[/h2]
My eyes snap open, light, blaster rifle, captor… Kiellar male, strong build, helmet hides face. My tongue flicks past my lips and I take in the rust-tinted stale air of my cell, but beneath it I can smell his apprehension. They still feared me, I could use that. My muzzled mouth hisses in warning. His rifle lowers, light with it leaving my face. He is alone in here, but there are four more outside my cell. Must be sealed for me not to have smelled them.

He approaches me, speaking in that airy tongue of theirs, but I could hear it naturally “Good morning, it's your lucky day.” I find sarcasm a fun game. When he gets within six feet, I throw my left arm forward, the limb stops only a few inches past my own head, knife-like talons covered in padding and chain straining suddenly. It was loose, but even if I could secure his weapon, his fellows would outmatch me, not that they would not just flood the cell with incapacitants. 

That light flies back into my eyes, my pupils narrowing, the adrenaline on his pores sated me. “It seems to be yours.” I offer him, it would be better that he knew I was toying with him. He was breathing evenly, firmly.

“Still don’t know why we aren’t just putting you down. Not worth it to let you out among civilians, even on that backwater.” he says bitterly, I let out a low rumble of curiosity. The question also stuck with me some times. I have been a toy, an experiment, an asset, a comrade, a work-slave, and now simply a prisoner to these knife-eared sadists, but unlike so many of my kin I have not been killed.

“It must pain you to see me go.” I say, my voice muffled, tone was difficult without freedom. He reached up and with a snap the mag-cuffs on my arms lock together behind my back automatically. The ones around my legs, on the other claw, were loosened, its tether open enough for me to trudge forward.

“It’ll be more painful for you, they don’t have any of your fucking chems.” My spines rise and my body springs into action. I know he was not lying, and instinct took over before any sort of melancholy could stop me. I slam myself into him, cracking his plasteel armor as I pin him to the wall against my torso, the hard material bowing and cracking, crushing ribs beneath.

“You will not leave me to die on a dead world.” I growl simply, turning and grinding my bound arms against him until it scans against the keycard. As my arms come free, red light bathes the room, and the hiss of opening valves. I had no hope, but I grabbed hold of his rifle and fired into the console next to the door. It did not matter, the cell was sealed and rapidly filling with a mix of aerosolized halogens. I took the remaining fifteen seconds to beat away at the door before my eyes grew heavy and shut. [hr]
When they re-opened, the sensation of sunlight was on my back. I couldn’t feel my limbs but, looking down, I was freed and wearing the harness that I had been captured in. Stripped of its plating it was little more than grey rags over my scales. The sedatives were still stopping me from rising to my feet. I had been thrown out from the ship, the steel across my shoulders beginning to feel warm.

I had perhaps a few weeks to live, assuming I did not get wounded trying to survive here. Though I could hear people speaking, I was still returning to consciousness.