The Exterminated

Chapter 8 Nikoa just can't catch a break pt 2: Nikoa

Nikoa blinked slowly, lifting his head up. His head ached. His vision blurred, and he could barely make out what was in front of him. He groaned, trying to move, but his hands wouldn't budge. He tried again, trying to move his hands out from behind his back. He tried to move his legs. Nothing. He was tied up again. Why does this keep happening? he cursed to himself.

The ache in his head began to dissipate, and his vision cleared. Chains tied both his hands together and his legs to the chair. They wrapped around his chest and torso, keeping him firmly bound to the chair. He could barely move. He tried to move the chair, but found it was fixed to the floor. He looked up. He was in the bridge of a ship.

A window stretched out in front of him. It wasn't like the windows in Jin's ship, the ones that rose far over their heads to the ceiling. This one was shaped like a trapezoid, getting smaller at the bottom. Stars shot past as the ship flew in warp space, or as Jin called it, 'zip mode'. His chair was pushed back as far as could be, keeping him well away from the controls. The lights were on, bathing the bridge in a dim light, and red lights glowed from highlights around the window, on the edges of the controls, and the two captain's chairs, one of which he was bound to.

"Well, look who's finally awake. Took you long enough."

Nikoa shot a deadly glare at the bounty hunter in the other seat. He had spun around to face him, surveying him with eyes like two drops of blood, a smirk dancing across his face. He noticed the bounty hunter's ears were pierced. He wore two small, gleaming red stones. He drummed his fingers on the gun laid on his lap, an open threat.

Nikoa held his head high. He didn't fear him nearly as much as he feared the humans. The humans. The memory hit him like a brick.

"Do you know who you're working for?" He asked, trying to sound disinterested. He could feel the hairs on his neck stand up.

"Do you?" The bounty hunter saw right through him. He tilted his head to the side, eyeing him.

Nikoa chose his words carefully, his heart beating fast. The tightness of the chains made it hard to breathe. "Do you know what they were?"

The bounty hunter narrowed his eyes. "Quit it with the riddles. Just say what you're going to say and be done with it. I don't want to hear you talk more than I have to."

"Those people back there, except for the Galin," he said, referring to Jin. "Do you know what they were?"

"I don't care what they were," he sneered. "Doesn't matter."

"Well you should care," Nikoa snapped, "Because it does matter." His eyes narrowed. "Those people back there, they were humans."

The bounty hunter scoffed. "If you want to trick me, you're going to have to do a whole lot better than that."

"I'm telling you the truth." He glared at him. "They're back. And the ones back there? They're trying to stop something big." The bounty hunter's face remained neutral. Nikoa took in a sharp breath, his eyes pleading with him to believe him. "There are other humans. And they're going to kill us all."

"Give me a break," he shifted in his seat, stretching out his broad shoulders. "Humans are long gone. They have been, for a very long time." He smirked. "Are you trying to tell me that's who hired me? The all powerful humans hired a bounty hunter to pick up their failed assassin. That right?"

"I didn't fail," he growled. "I chose not to complete the mission. There's a difference."

The bounty hunter hummed deep in his throat. "And why, might I ask, would you do that?" He was enjoying this.