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Description
    “GOOD MORNING G66-5TF,” The chirpy, far too happy voice of the resident local nanochip radio announcer rang out suddenly around the tiny little apartment, bringing its occupant slightly out of the sluggish tiredness of sleep, and yet, still leaving him mostly within dreamland.
    The voice continued on in its almost unnaturally joyous voice, “”It’s a wonderful day to lie in and rest, so sympathies to all those drones who have to work today, word up though, the transporter running through the ninth level of the hive has been delayed, so you guys living there better videophone ahead to your bosses because you’re gonna be late.”
    Beatmixlel rubbed his ruby red eyes with one hand as he tried to remember where he was exactly, as he was still quiet unused to waking up in the deep purple surroundings of his drone quarters. Beatmixlel was shorter then the average irken, which is why he’d be placed in the drone caste and he had a somewhat slim build, no real muscle, but not exactly thin. His skin was a healthy lime green and his antennae were a little longer than normal, but unusually, they zigzagged at the ends, giving a somewhat frizzled expression to the irken.
    He slowly pushed himself up from his bed and blinked several times as the violet coloured blanket fell from him and flumped onto the floor. The young irken almost looked surprised at his surroundings before his memory kicked in and he realised where he was. Beatmixlel was still unused to being on a different plant and knowing a new place after spending all his life on Irk, however, he was slowly getting used to Devastis… even though, he did miss the native feel of Irk.
    Devastis was a planet dedicated to all things military. It was at once a massive training planet and the centre of all military operations within the Irken Empire. It was constantly moving and marching and driving and blowing up and flying and shouting orders. It was a planet that truly never stopped moving, in every sense of the word. Everything here was in shifts, everything here was structured and everything was on time and proper and correct.
    But everything here was fake. There was no nature left on Devastis, it’d all been replaced by pure raw machinery and simulated training environments. There were forest areas, jungle areas, arid toxic areas, deserts and more. But they were all fake, artificial and made for the only propose of training, never to be admired.
    Underground, this was more proficient then ever, as all the simulated environments were topside, under the ground was where everything that didn’t need an environment took place. Weapons and tactics and hand-to-hand where taught here. It was also where the vast majority of the occupants, both soldiers and workers lived.
    Most of the first layer of Devastis was gone, replaced by mind bogglingly huge caverns in massive pyramid-like spaces, all interconnecting and spreading out for miles on end, all collectively known as ‘hives’. Each hive held about one hundred thousand irkens, which were usually about sixty thousand soldiers and forty thousand drones and each hive was usually only about ten miles apart, spreading over a massive area that was often designated to a certain type of training.
   It was only as Beatmixlel was washing the ends of his antennae in his shower that he re-heard, this time while being fully awake enough to listen, the radio announcer in the background tell everyone again about the delay on the transporter line.
   He groaned and decided he didn’t need to rush if his only ride to his workstation was going to be late anyway. He’d only been late once before and that was on his first day here, since he taken almost thirty minutes to find where the transporter station was.
    Soon he was dressed in his normal uniform which was a pair of black pants, simple boots and a long sleeved dark green uniform that came down to his thighs. Around his neck was a collar in a slightly lighter green with the service drone insignia printed on it in black. It covered most of his neck and came down to about his chest on both the front and back in a triangle shape. On his hands was a pair of black gloves made from a soft but durable material which came up to his elbows.
   While he chomped on a genetically grown fruit, designed to give him all the energy he’d need in the morning, he walked over to his windows and, with a single tap, cut them out of night mode to reveal the view outside. The underground was lit by a series of massive lights built into the cavern roof which simulated the same day-night cycles that happened above ground. It was meant to make sure that the people below didn’t become too disorientated but the lights themselves never seemed bright enough, and it was as if the drones lived within a perpetually cloudy and gloomy day.
    The view was terrible, just the dirty, mostly empty street, some streetlights and the apartment building across from his. Beatmixlel’s flat was the fifth in a row of twenty and on the third floor of a ten story building. It was nothing different from the twenty other buildings like it in the area, with only a commercial and entertainment centre before even more flats. They didn’t have any parks, but even if they did, they’d be made from synthetic trees and plants.
    Nothing on Devastis was natural… only the people.
    The trainee soldiers where situated in high quality quarters and placed as close to the surface as possible and often given very spacious housing where they’d share eating halls and training rooms and recreational centres, all fully modern and equipped with the best that could be afforded for them. However, they were trained just as had as they were rewarded, only the best for the best.
    In stark contrast, the works, the cleaners and cooks and waiters and technicians lived even lower into the planet, were it was dimmer and dirtier and generally poorer. There was none of the shine and polish of the soldiers’ level; this was built to house people and that was all. They had communal halls and recreational centres in the same way the soldiers did but their food was far more basic and their entertainment far less entertaining.
    However, this didn’t stop the drones from coming together in the same manner of the soldiers above. The drone community was just as strong, perhaps stronger due to their lower quality of life and less pressure than their military superiors. They were clustered together which of course only further built relationships deep within the caverns of Devastis. It was said that whole generations of irken families lived and died deep within the hives.
    But right now, there was no time for the workers to relax, at least, not for the ones called to their jobs. Across the vast planet, billions of workers set out to go about their shift as billions of others returned home from the night shift to sleep and relax.
    Beatmixlel looked around his little flat one last time before leaving, his eyes moving over all the old fashioned romance story-drives that he had lying around, most of which he still hadn’t plugged into his PAK to read, as well as the numerous clothes he had to wash and movie disks he had brought from Irk.
    Sighing, he stepped out of the door and it automatically locked behind him. He had a strange feeling…like it’d be both a good and bad day. His automatic lateness was proof that no matter what, it’d start badly, which was never good…but he hoped it’d end well…yes, he had a feeling that today would end well. And with this glimmer of hope within him, Beatmixlel set out on his day.
    The transporter station was a rather large but somehow always stiflingly busy building. It served as the only way to rush about the underground bases on Devastis, unless one owned a hoverbike or jetscooter to move around the inner areas of the hives. One could always hear the station before one saw the station, due to the massive noise of so many irkens moving in and out.
    Beatmixlel had to push and fight his way through the crowd in order to reach the station, through the massed throngs of irkens all waiting themselves for the same trip into work, although, the number would soon increase the moment the mass of irkens returning from work arrived.
    Chatter of hundreds of disgruntled works filled the air, most of them growling about the laziness of the repair drones or the state of the transporter line and the lack of money being spent on the drone areas. But, what could they do? They were short and the ones in charge were tall. They were but workers and the Taller ones had all the power and the money.
    Beatmixlel stood, silently listening to all of this, wondering why the workers were complaining about having no power when, in his opinion, they had all the power. Without the drones, the wheels of Devastis, no, the entire Irken Empire would completely halt. However, the young irken shrugged, and brushed the thought off, after all, he was only a drone, so what did he know?
    “Hey little dude,” Beatmixlel spun around at the familiar voice to see his workmate, Bverski.
    Bverski was a very lazy, rather out of shape drone who was just a little bit taller than Beatmixlel was. His skin was a dirty kind of green and his eyes were a silvery blue. His uniform was the same as Beatmixlel’s, as they were both service drones, but Bverski never seemed to do any kind of work.
    “Hey,” Beatmixlel replied in his northern-irken-esk accent, “Transporters late…”
    “I know,” Bverski put his hand behind his head, “The boss won’t be happy… especially as we’re meant to be giving breakfast to one of them main halls today.”
    Beatmixlel winced. He hated doing the main halls in the morning, not because of the work, but because of the masses of grumpy, just-woke-up soldiers who were extra mean to all the drones since they were hungry.
    “Great…” Beatmixlel mumbled, kicking a piece of rubbish away from his foot, “Angry soldiers and an angry boss…”
    “Ahh, don’t worry about it kid,” Bverski chuckled, “It’s almost the weekend! Think about it, you’ll get at least one day off tomorrow.”
    “Yea… suppose…” Beatmixlel muttered to his shoes.
    Suddenly, an announcement pinged loudly around the station and a computerised female’s voice announced, “We’d like to apologise to all work drones made late by the inconvenience and we’d like you all to know we’re working to fix the problem as we speak. Have a nice day!”
    “Have a nice day,” Bverski scoffed, “Not at this rate.”

    “YOU’RE LATE!” The taller, yellow eyed irken screamed at Beatmixlel, causing him to cringe and wish that she would stop spitting at him. His boss was a very worn out, very thin female who really looked like she could collapse into a jibbering pile of crazy at any second.
   Around him utter chaos was breaking loose. Half the chefs and cooks had been late as well as Beatmixlel and they were now going insane trying to organise everything for the loudly shouting soldiers in the main hall.
    “Well…so are lots of people…” Beatmixlel tried to reply, hoping to shift some of his boss’s rage.
    It didn’t.
    “But you’re NEW, you’re meant to be ON TIME, you’re not meant to be SLACKING!” Her accent was Middle Eastern and her voice was croaky. “Look,” She quickly added, looking around, “I’ll punish you later, just go get ready.”
    Beatmixlel nodded, feeling queasier at going out to face the hoards of soldiers than getting punished by his boss.
    Near to the double doors to the main hall, beyond which the angry shouts and yells of at least a hundred angry, grumpy, hungry soldiers could be heard, a small group of drones stood, each being handed several platters to attach to two of their modified PAK legs and another to hold in their hands.
    They quickly gave Beatmixlel his platters and then they set about loading as food and plates upon them as possible. Maybe people simply thought it was a simple job, running around handing out food but there was actually an art to keeping as much food on their platters as possible. It required an amazing amount of steadiness and training before they even began to get it right.
    Beatmixlel had never dropped any food, not even when shoved by other soldiers, such was one thing he truly prided himself on.
     “Ok, everyone,” The boss walked over, hands on hips and glaring at the gathered drone, “I want you guys to be extra-fast today due to the delays, and NO slacking!”
    The drones all nodded in unison, even though Beatmixlel had a sneaking suspicion that Bverski wasn’t listening.
    The doors opened and immediately the roars of the angry irkens hit the drones, but they quickly rushed forward, following the layout pattern that’d been drilled into them since they’d arrived here.
    Beatmixlel’s row was the seventh, dealing with the first 4 tables on either side, supposedly with Bverski working along with him, but since the irken worked slower than a Blorch Rat at an office job, Beatmixlel usually took to doing both sides himself.
    As he rushed around, handing plates to the many grabbing hands of the soldiers, he wondered if he should mention this to his boss when she shouted at him or save it for later when he could ask for a raise…
    Finally he’d handed out the last of his plates and he turned to rush back for more, even though he had many soldiers still left demanding where their food was.
    “I’m sorry, I’m hurrying as fast as I can,” Beatmixlel repeated at to at least six different soldiers until he reached the end of his row. He thanked his lucky stars he could at least take a short breather in the kitchens before continuing, but something stopped him.
    Mainly the foot sticking out from the second-to-last soldier on the end table, which Beatmixlel didn’t see until he was falling forwards onto his face.
    The tables around him roared with cruel laughter as Beatmixlel hit the floor, hard, and listened as his platters clattered around him. He felt like hitting someone, but he knew he had no power or place to do so, so instead he lifted himself up and began collecting the platters while trying not to make eye contact with anyone.
    It was times like this he almost, almost hated his job. But he knew he could never give it up or storm out. After all, what else was he going to do? Besides, as he walked back into the kitchen, and setting out his platters, which immediately began to get refilled with food, he get some satisfaction in knowing that without him, those soldiers wouldn’t have the energy to train and go on with protecting their Empire.
    He smiled, yes, without him, the Empire’s finest would go hungry and lose battles and the empire would fall!
    Renewed with this idea, Beatmixlel bravely rushed back out into the massive hall to feed yet more hungry bellies and proudly serve the trainee troops of tomorrow.
    Four more trips ups later and he was having a little bit of a hard time hanging onto the idea that he was important. He stormed into the kitchen, politely throwing down his platters onto an empty washing conveyor and let a modified mech-leg come from his back to poor juice into a little glass he’d picked up. At least the soldiers could show a little bit of gratitude, at least they could thank him once in a while…at least they could stop tripping him up and throwing him down garbage shoots.
    As he angrily drank his juice he wished, just for a moment, that he could be taller than the soldiers, than he’d get to kick them around for a change. But he knew such thoughts were silly…not to mention dangerous. He was short, he was a drone, therefore, it was his destiny and place in society to work for the joy of others. He should find joy in the fact that he made others happy.
    He put down his drink and smiled, returning back to the massive noisy hall, handing out as many food plates as needed while trying to ignore the mess. After all, while the service drones had made a big mess handing out plates and bowls of food for all the soldiers, it was not their job to clean it up, which was something Beatmixlel was actually glad he didn’t have to do.
    For what seemed like hours but was really only about half an hour the drones worked constantly and faithfully at getting the food to the mouths of the hungry soldiers. The noise eventually died away as the trainee’s exited the hall, leaving nothing but mess and uneaten food and tired drones in their place.
    “PEOPLE!” The shout rang out overhead and Beatmixlel knew he was to be re-assigned again, so soon after he’d barely got a minute to gather himself.
    The service drones gathered back into the hall, around their boss who was now holding an E-pad in her hands. “Ok… We’ll be servicing the general’s office for brunch and a business meeting the 3rd lieutenant Virtra is holding…”
    “Why does a lieutenant need a business meeting?” Bverski asked suddenly.
    Without missing a beat the boss quickly replied, “Shut up.” Before continuing, “We’ll do that for two hours each time before moving on to whatever job we have next. Any questions?”
    As usual, there were none, and thus the mini-meeting was adjured as the boss sent out a wireless, instant update into the drones PAK’s telling them the exact location of their next job and further details, such as names and the personal favourite foods and drinks of the ones they were waiting on.
    The group all walked to their next destination in a crowd, talking and chatting and complaining about the continuous mistreatment by the soldiers. The usual calls of ‘Why doesn’t someone say something’ were there, but again, no one would ever answer. No drone could ever talk to a Taller about this and expect something to be done.
    “You know, maybe we should form some kind of gang…” Beatmixlel mused to himself, “Something so that soldiers would stop picking on us.”
    “Dude,” Bverski replied in his impossibly calm voice, “Just, like, abide.”
    Beatmixlel rolled his eyes, there was no way Bverski would ever take time of out his busy schedule of doing nothing to try and get help his fellow irken. “I suppose so…” He sighed, “Let’s just get this day over with so I can start my weekend.”
    Needless to say, Beatmixlel didn’t know exactly how long of a day still he had ahead of him.

    Beatmixlel’s head landed on the cold, cooling wall of the pilots dining all. Pilots weren’t usually all that bad, they were cocky, arrogant and not afraid to grab a drone’s ass when giving out food, but not mean in the way the soldiers were mean.
    Which was a nice change from the boring general’s office with stuffy elite’s who were constantly complaining and looking down on you, both literally and figuratively. But Beatmixlel didn’t hate them, he didn’t hate his job, he hated the fact that the hours weren’t going by fast enough. His ebooks were calling him! His couch was begging to be sat on! His ass wanted to sit on his couch which was begging for him to sit on it!
    “BEATMIXLEL!” His boss’s voice shouted out from right behind him, “YOU’RE SLACKING!”
    Holding back a cry of sheer exhausted pain, he turned to face her, “I’m on my break!”
    “No,” She shook her head, “Your break ended ten seconds ago!” She sighed and shook her head, “And I thought you were more dedicated then this.”
    Beatmixlel went to argue back, clearly annoyed that she was obviously picking on him, but again, the female butted in before he could talk.
    “You’re going to take an order downstairs to the guard station.” She ordered soundly.
    “WHAT?!” Beatmixlel shouted out throwing his arms into the air, “But that’s totally unfair and it’ll take me all break!”
    “Think of it as your added punishment from this morning,” She grinned evilly, like a small smeet taking the wings off an insect, “You’ll think twice about slacking off now, eh?”
    ‘I’ll think twice about kicking your…’ Beatmixlel sighed in defeat, knowing there was no way out, “Fine… whatever.”
    She pulled out a small case from within her PAK, showing that she had been planning this punishment all along, and allowed Beatmixlel to snatch it from her hand and begin walking out, muttering irken curses under his breath.
    The guards were all very old considering they were almost completely drawn up from soldiers who were too injured or too old to continue fighting. This also meant that they tended to complain about things and take out their boredom or frustration on others. Irken culture wasn’t one that usually respected old people or old things, thus, no body really cared about them, which of course only further caused the guards to be mean to as many people as possible.
    Beatmixlel planned to just hand them their lunch and run as fast as possible before they complained about it, shouted at him for nothing or tried to beat him up for getting some imaginary rule wrong.
    As he walked, he looked up and wondered what the sky was like. Well, obviously it wasn’t as if he’d never seen a sky before, but it seemed like his memory of the sky was fading. The image was there, his PAK could automatically pull up a picture of the sky and flash it before his mind…but it wasn’t a real memory. A real memory had smells, sound, feeling. That cool breeze, that sense of wonder as one looked up at the blazing local sun and just marvelled at the sight of it all.
    He looked back down and shrugged. He supposed he could always just get a job working on the Massive, if it ever got finished. At least that way he could always look out of a window and see the infinite of stars and endless possibilities of the universe.
    But he probably wouldn’t bother. He’d only just started out here and it wasn’t too bad. Apart from…well, most things but he was sure he’d get used to it. Besides, he didn’t have much of a reason to leave Devastis.
    His thoughts were suddenly frozen as the sound of footsteps came towards him. Soldiers, he could tell by the very loud and obnoxious way they talked.
    “Listen,” One of the soldiers voices bounced along the corridor towards Beatmixlel, “Sid, Gyui is so into you, if you just-”
    “No, no, double no, triple no, googolplex no,” The voice seemed to be charming and laughing and growling all at once, how odd, “And some more no’s added on the end of that.”
    Beatmixlel decided that he didn’t want any trouble, especially when he still had a way to go before getting to the guard station and he knew they’d complain if he was even a second late. His eyes hit the floor and he shrunk into himself, hoping that if he thought small they’d miss him and ignore him.
    The voices came closer, “But Sid, dude,” there was a sudden ‘oof’ and the tone changed, “Fine. But you’re missing out.”
    “On what?” The soldiers finally turned the corner and came into view but Beatmixlel made sure to keep his eyes down, even so, he could somehow tell that the soldiers before him were nothing but trouble. “I’d rather not bother myself with people in that way, I’ve got far more entertaining things to do with my time.”
    ‘Just keep your eyes down,’ He repeated to himself as they drew closer, ‘Don’t look up, don’t make a-’
    Suddenly, an arm reached out and grabbed him. It was so sudden that he almost fell over from the force of being spun and pulled to the side of the soldier, who was at least a full half a head taller than him. It was such a shock that he almost dropped the lunch, but his hands clenched down onto it, as if it was the only thing he could protect, even as a vice-like grip clawed onto his arm.
    “You see,” The voice above him announced, “I’d rather do horrible things to drones.”
    Beatmixlel looked up, finally, to see the soldier properly. He had thin features, but by the way he gripped Beatmixlel’s shirt and held his arm, he could tell that the figure had hidden strength. It was his smile however, both on his lips and in his eyes that scared the small drone. He’d seen mean soldiers before, but this guy…something was just, well, dark about him. Something that made one want to run away and hide under the covers and when Beatmixlel turned to see the other soldier, an ever so slightly shorter irken with earthy brown eyes, he could see that he too feared the purpled eyed irken.
    Beatmixlel was dragged, very much against his will, towards the wall where a nearby trash chute was located. He tried to wiggle out of the irkens grip, but his captor was far stronger than he first appeared, and his lock on Beatmixlel’s neck was unbreakable.
    “Now, I’m probably about to ruin this young drones day,” The taller, purple eye’d irken commented as he shoved Beatmixlel to the side of the chute while his friend opened the hatch, “And it gives me far more pleasure knowing I’ve ruined his day, than to go out with some slutty drama queen.”
    It seemed to be all in one movement, the irken grabbing the front of the drones shirt, almost lifting him up from the floor with one arm and throwing him backwards into the chute. All Beatmixlel heard as he fell down, the air whooshing past his antennae, was an echo of, “Sid, you’re a sick dude.”
    The drone had no idea how many bruises he got from bouncing off the sides of the chute, smashing his back and head against the twists and turns of the massive interconnecting tubes that linked up all the garbage routs for this area. At one point, he hit a corner hard and something in his arm snapped, he screamed and his scream turned back on him in the enclosed, black space, ringing everywhere and echoing none stop.
    For the first time in his life, Beatmixlel began to fear for his life. He couldn’t imagine a more horrible place than this chute. The pitch darkness groped and grabbed him, the metal walls smashed and punched him, the smell and noise attacked his senses, causing nausea and confusion.
    If he ever believed in a hell, he was sure that it would be like this. But probably hotter. And with spikes.
    Through all his pain, he could hear something approaching, some loud, grinding noise and the sound of water sloshing about. Somewhere, beyond his excruciating pain and loss of direction, he knew that he was about to land and it wasn’t going to be nice.
    He only saw a flash of the sickly green, disgusting brown and toxic yellow coloured water before he hit it, hard. It slapped him, almost knocking him unconscious, but the smell and the taste and the general disgustingness of it all shocked his body into waking.
    Immediately he activated his PAK legs to try and lift himself up above the water, which seemed bottomless, however, they couldn’t grab anything, they only scraped along the blank, emotionless walls of the garbage holder. He couldn’t open his eyes because the water was so toxic, it burned them. Pain was beginning to erupt all over his body as his skin reacted to the mass of infections and toxins in the water.
    He couldn’t breath, he couldn’t see, everything was blacking out and closing in around him. He felt nothing but pain and saw nothing but darkness. He was falling into the darkness of acid-waste.
    Then, light, and a hand reaching into the darkness for him.
    Beatmixlel barely felt a hand grab his own, but he felt himself being pulled up and the toxic waste pushing against his face burning and scolding more and more, almost as if it was trying to destroy him before he could reach the top. It was refusing to let him go, it wanted him to stay, to float forever with the rest of the garbage.
    But when the air hit him, the pain melted away, and the light became brighter. Something, someone was there, someone was in front of the light, shouting to him, but he couldn’t hear since his antennae hurt so badly. His whole body ached and pained and all he wished to do was sleep for a thousand years.
    However, his PAK wouldn’t let him. Already he could feel it’s systems rushing though him, in-build medication going to every part of his body that needed it and it’s computerized voice echoing in his brain, telling him it was going to shut him down whilst it worked his nano-tech medicine on him.
    Everything faded to black, but he could still see the light-being, even as everything else faded away…
    Beatmixlel was unsure if he believed in anything, well, ‘spiritual’ as others put it. The Empire barely tolerated religion as it was, and ones like Ikanism and Ritsam never appealed to him but right now he’d ask any greater-being that was listening to stop his body from pulsing with agony.
    ‘Please,’ He begged as he felt his limbs returning feeling, his eyes still shut tight, ‘Please just… someone help me…’
    “Hey!” The voice forced it’s way into his mind like something wading through mud, “Hey? Can you hear me?”
    Beatmixlel groaned and his eyes opened slowly, squinting as they adjusted to the light, however, his breath almost vanished when he saw it again, the light-being, a silhouette against the brightness, looking down on him and protecting him with a voice of something pure and wonderful.
    However, his eyes adjusted, and the silhouette became more pronounced, it took on the shape of an irken, a female, with a technician’s uniform.
    Her eyes came into view, and they were the most beautiful shade of deep, passionate red. Her face was perfect, with soft lips, subtle green skin and shoulder-length antennae which curled sharply.
    Her uniform was body-forming, showing of her slim-line figure, with big silver shoulder pads and it ended in a sort of tail which didn’t quite touch the ground.
    Beatmixlel looked around, he seemed to be in some kind of office, but it looked more like a bedroom. There was a desk covered in office supplies and papers and mugs whilst pictures were stuck up on the wall, along with a calendar. From what he could tell, this was some kind of engineering space, as there was a rack of tools and a big toolbox near the door. He reasoned that this must be a check point, one where they kept people in overnight in case of emergencies.
    The smell of oil and dirt hit him, and it made him feel light headed.
    However, his eyes came back to the girl, who still seemed to shine with some kind of inner light.
    “You’re awake!” She smiled at him and he felt a wonderful tingling feeling run up his spin, “You must have had a pretty hard fall. You were out for a while. I guess the compactor pool didn’t help much either.”
    Beatmixlel blinked and went to rub his eyes, but his arms hurt too much, so he stopped. “Who-”
    “Am I?” The girl smiled again, “The name’s Zapp, I was doing a checkup on the compactor, so it was shut off when you fell in, lucky eh?” She got up and moved over to the mugs, picking them up and taking them to the wall-build drinks dispenser, “I managed to save you, you almost drowned. Plus, I bet the toxins in that pool burned you up pretty bad.”
    Zapp. Beatmixlel swore to himself silently that he’d always remember that name, after all, it belonged to the most wonderful person he’d met since he got here.
    “I, I have to get to work,” Beatmixlel stammered out, he was still pretty woozy, and he didn’t really know what he should be doing. All he knew is, if he didn’t get back into his duty, his supervisor wouldn’t be very happy with him.
    “Forget it!” Zapp laughed as the drink machine filled the cups up with someone nice and hot, “You need to keep in bed for a least a few days. I’m not a medic and even I can see that.”
    “But… supervisors…” Beatmixlel mumbled out, slowly pushing himself up into sitting position, even though it hurt him like nothing he’d felt before, “They’ll be mad at me.”
    “And will they find you all the way down here?” Zapp smiled at him again as she handed him a mug of hot drink, “Don’t worry about it. No one ever comes down here apart from us engineers. And besides, you only have to visit a medic to get him to back up the fact that you almost died.”
    Beatmixlel managed a small smile, but didn’t drink from his mug. His arms hurt too much to move, although the nice warmth of the drink seeped into his fingers and gave some of the feeling back.
   “Well, thank you, very much,” Beatmixlel smiled back at her, thinking how he should have said that first thing, how stupid of him.
    “Don’t think about it,” Zapp chuckled as she sat next to him on the bed, “It’s all in a days work.”
    “Really?” Beatmixlel asked his eyes wide with amazement.
    “… no,” Zapp laughed and smiled, “This is actually the most active thing I’ve done all month.” She nudged him, despite his ‘ouch!’ and wincing, and quickly asked, “What’s your name?”
    “Beatmixlel,” He replied quickly, “I’m a service drone up above.” He gluped and decided that he’d been through too much today not to ask, “I’m also off tomorrow if you want me to take you to lunch as thanks,” he smiled politely and quickly added, “As a friend of course.”
    “Sure!” Zapp grinned, “As friends!”
    Beatmixlel kept up his smile as he nodded, even though inside, he felt like something had been kicked, hard. Of all the things that had happened that day, somehow, that felt the worst, “As friends.”

Description
    “GOOD MORNING G66-5TF,” The chirpy, far too happy voice of the resident local nanochip radio announcer rang out suddenly around the tiny little apartment, bringing its occupant slightly out of the sluggish tiredness of sleep, and yet, still leaving him mostly within dreamland.
    The voice continued on in its almost unnaturally joyous voice, “”It’s a wonderful day to lie in and rest, so sympathies to all those drones who have to work today, word up though, the transporter running through the ninth level of the hive has been delayed, so you guys living there better videophone ahead to your bosses because you’re gonna be late.”
    Beatmixlel rubbed his ruby red eyes with one hand as he tried to remember where he was exactly, as he was still quiet unused to waking up in the deep purple surroundings of his drone quarters. Beatmixlel was shorter then the average irken, which is why he’d be placed in the drone caste and he had a somewhat slim build, no real muscle, but not exactly thin. His skin was a healthy lime green and his antennae were a little longer than normal, but unusually, they zigzagged at the ends, giving a somewhat frizzled expression to the irken.
    He slowly pushed himself up from his bed and blinked several times as the violet coloured blanket fell from him and flumped onto the floor. The young irken almost looked surprised at his surroundings before his memory kicked in and he realised where he was. Beatmixlel was still unused to being on a different plant and knowing a new place after spending all his life on Irk, however, he was slowly getting used to Devastis… even though, he did miss the native feel of Irk.
    Devastis was a planet dedicated to all things military. It was at once a massive training planet and the centre of all military operations within the Irken Empire. It was constantly moving and marching and driving and blowing up and flying and shouting orders. It was a planet that truly never stopped moving, in every sense of the word. Everything here was in shifts, everything here was structured and everything was on time and proper and correct.
    But everything here was fake. There was no nature left on Devastis, it’d all been replaced by pure raw machinery and simulated training environments. There were forest areas, jungle areas, arid toxic areas, deserts and more. But they were all fake, artificial and made for the only propose of training, never to be admired.
    Underground, this was more proficient then ever, as all the simulated environments were topside, under the ground was where everything that didn’t need an environment took place. Weapons and tactics and hand-to-hand where taught here. It was also where the vast majority of the occupants, both soldiers and workers lived.
    Most of the first layer of Devastis was gone, replaced by mind bogglingly huge caverns in massive pyramid-like spaces, all interconnecting and spreading out for miles on end, all collectively known as ‘hives’. Each hive held about one hundred thousand irkens, which were usually about sixty thousand soldiers and forty thousand drones and each hive was usually only about ten miles apart, spreading over a massive area that was often designated to a certain type of training.
   It was only as Beatmixlel was washing the ends of his antennae in his shower that he re-heard, this time while being fully awake enough to listen, the radio announcer in the background tell everyone again about the delay on the transporter line.
   He groaned and decided he didn’t need to rush if his only ride to his workstation was going to be late anyway. He’d only been late once before and that was on his first day here, since he taken almost thirty minutes to find where the transporter station was.
    Soon he was dressed in his normal uniform which was a pair of black pants, simple boots and a long sleeved dark green uniform that came down to his thighs. Around his neck was a collar in a slightly lighter green with the service drone insignia printed on it in black. It covered most of his neck and came down to about his chest on both the front and back in a triangle shape. On his hands was a pair of black gloves made from a soft but durable material which came up to his elbows.
   While he chomped on a genetically grown fruit, designed to give him all the energy he’d need in the morning, he walked over to his windows and, with a single tap, cut them out of night mode to reveal the view outside. The underground was lit by a series of massive lights built into the cavern roof which simulated the same day-night cycles that happened above ground. It was meant to make sure that the people below didn’t become too disorientated but the lights themselves never seemed bright enough, and it was as if the drones lived within a perpetually cloudy and gloomy day.
    The view was terrible, just the dirty, mostly empty street, some streetlights and the apartment building across from his. Beatmixlel’s flat was the fifth in a row of twenty and on the third floor of a ten story building. It was nothing different from the twenty other buildings like it in the area, with only a commercial and entertainment centre before even more flats. They didn’t have any parks, but even if they did, they’d be made from synthetic trees and plants.
    Nothing on Devastis was natural… only the people.
    The trainee soldiers where situated in high quality quarters and placed as close to the surface as possible and often given very spacious housing where they’d share eating halls and training rooms and recreational centres, all fully modern and equipped with the best that could be afforded for them. However, they were trained just as had as they were rewarded, only the best for the best.
    In stark contrast, the works, the cleaners and cooks and waiters and technicians lived even lower into the planet, were it was dimmer and dirtier and generally poorer. There was none of the shine and polish of the soldiers’ level; this was built to house people and that was all. They had communal halls and recreational centres in the same way the soldiers did but their food was far more basic and their entertainment far less entertaining.
    However, this didn’t stop the drones from coming together in the same manner of the soldiers above. The drone community was just as strong, perhaps stronger due to their lower quality of life and less pressure than their military superiors. They were clustered together which of course only further built relationships deep within the caverns of Devastis. It was said that whole generations of irken families lived and died deep within the hives.
    But right now, there was no time for the workers to relax, at least, not for the ones called to their jobs. Across the vast planet, billions of workers set out to go about their shift as billions of others returned home from the night shift to sleep and relax.
    Beatmixlel looked around his little flat one last time before leaving, his eyes moving over all the old fashioned romance story-drives that he had lying around, most of which he still hadn’t plugged into his PAK to read, as well as the numerous clothes he had to wash and movie disks he had brought from Irk.
    Sighing, he stepped out of the door and it automatically locked behind him. He had a strange feeling…like it’d be both a good and bad day. His automatic lateness was proof that no matter what, it’d start badly, which was never good…but he hoped it’d end well…yes, he had a feeling that today would end well. And with this glimmer of hope within him, Beatmixlel set out on his day.
    The transporter station was a rather large but somehow always stiflingly busy building. It served as the only way to rush about the underground bases on Devastis, unless one owned a hoverbike or jetscooter to move around the inner areas of the hives. One could always hear the station before one saw the station, due to the massive noise of so many irkens moving in and out.
    Beatmixlel had to push and fight his way through the crowd in order to reach the station, through the massed throngs of irkens all waiting themselves for the same trip into work, although, the number would soon increase the moment the mass of irkens returning from work arrived.
    Chatter of hundreds of disgruntled works filled the air, most of them growling about the laziness of the repair drones or the state of the transporter line and the lack of money being spent on the drone areas. But, what could they do? They were short and the ones in charge were tall. They were but workers and the Taller ones had all the power and the money.
    Beatmixlel stood, silently listening to all of this, wondering why the workers were complaining about having no power when, in his opinion, they had all the power. Without the drones, the wheels of Devastis, no, the entire Irken Empire would completely halt. However, the young irken shrugged, and brushed the thought off, after all, he was only a drone, so what did he know?
    “Hey little dude,” Beatmixlel spun around at the familiar voice to see his workmate, Bverski.
    Bverski was a very lazy, rather out of shape drone who was just a little bit taller than Beatmixlel was. His skin was a dirty kind of green and his eyes were a silvery blue. His uniform was the same as Beatmixlel’s, as they were both service drones, but Bverski never seemed to do any kind of work.
    “Hey,” Beatmixlel replied in his northern-irken-esk accent, “Transporters late…”
    “I know,” Bverski put his hand behind his head, “The boss won’t be happy… especially as we’re meant to be giving breakfast to one of them main halls today.”
    Beatmixlel winced. He hated doing the main halls in the morning, not because of the work, but because of the masses of grumpy, just-woke-up soldiers who were extra mean to all the drones since they were hungry.
    “Great…” Beatmixlel mumbled, kicking a piece of rubbish away from his foot, “Angry soldiers and an angry boss…”
    “Ahh, don’t worry about it kid,” Bverski chuckled, “It’s almost the weekend! Think about it, you’ll get at least one day off tomorrow.”
    “Yea… suppose…” Beatmixlel muttered to his shoes.
    Suddenly, an announcement pinged loudly around the station and a computerised female’s voice announced, “We’d like to apologise to all work drones made late by the inconvenience and we’d like you all to know we’re working to fix the problem as we speak. Have a nice day!”
    “Have a nice day,” Bverski scoffed, “Not at this rate.”

    “YOU’RE LATE!” The taller, yellow eyed irken screamed at Beatmixlel, causing him to cringe and wish that she would stop spitting at him. His boss was a very worn out, very thin female who really looked like she could collapse into a jibbering pile of crazy at any second.
   Around him utter chaos was breaking loose. Half the chefs and cooks had been late as well as Beatmixlel and they were now going insane trying to organise everything for the loudly shouting soldiers in the main hall.
    “Well…so are lots of people…” Beatmixlel tried to reply, hoping to shift some of his boss’s rage.
    It didn’t.
    “But you’re NEW, you’re meant to be ON TIME, you’re not meant to be SLACKING!” Her accent was Middle Eastern and her voice was croaky. “Look,” She quickly added, looking around, “I’ll punish you later, just go get ready.”
    Beatmixlel nodded, feeling queasier at going out to face the hoards of soldiers than getting punished by his boss.
    Near to the double doors to the main hall, beyond which the angry shouts and yells of at least a hundred angry, grumpy, hungry soldiers could be heard, a small group of drones stood, each being handed several platters to attach to two of their modified PAK legs and another to hold in their hands.
    They quickly gave Beatmixlel his platters and then they set about loading as food and plates upon them as possible. Maybe people simply thought it was a simple job, running around handing out food but there was actually an art to keeping as much food on their platters as possible. It required an amazing amount of steadiness and training before they even began to get it right.
    Beatmixlel had never dropped any food, not even when shoved by other soldiers, such was one thing he truly prided himself on.
     “Ok, everyone,” The boss walked over, hands on hips and glaring at the gathered drone, “I want you guys to be extra-fast today due to the delays, and NO slacking!”
    The drones all nodded in unison, even though Beatmixlel had a sneaking suspicion that Bverski wasn’t listening.
    The doors opened and immediately the roars of the angry irkens hit the drones, but they quickly rushed forward, following the layout pattern that’d been drilled into them since they’d arrived here.
    Beatmixlel’s row was the seventh, dealing with the first 4 tables on either side, supposedly with Bverski working along with him, but since the irken worked slower than a Blorch Rat at an office job, Beatmixlel usually took to doing both sides himself.
    As he rushed around, handing plates to the many grabbing hands of the soldiers, he wondered if he should mention this to his boss when she shouted at him or save it for later when he could ask for a raise…
    Finally he’d handed out the last of his plates and he turned to rush back for more, even though he had many soldiers still left demanding where their food was.
    “I’m sorry, I’m hurrying as fast as I can,” Beatmixlel repeated at to at least six different soldiers until he reached the end of his row. He thanked his lucky stars he could at least take a short breather in the kitchens before continuing, but something stopped him.
    Mainly the foot sticking out from the second-to-last soldier on the end table, which Beatmixlel didn’t see until he was falling forwards onto his face.
    The tables around him roared with cruel laughter as Beatmixlel hit the floor, hard, and listened as his platters clattered around him. He felt like hitting someone, but he knew he had no power or place to do so, so instead he lifted himself up and began collecting the platters while trying not to make eye contact with anyone.
    It was times like this he almost, almost hated his job. But he knew he could never give it up or storm out. After all, what else was he going to do? Besides, as he walked back into the kitchen, and setting out his platters, which immediately began to get refilled with food, he get some satisfaction in knowing that without him, those soldiers wouldn’t have the energy to train and go on with protecting their Empire.
    He smiled, yes, without him, the Empire’s finest would go hungry and lose battles and the empire would fall!
    Renewed with this idea, Beatmixlel bravely rushed back out into the massive hall to feed yet more hungry bellies and proudly serve the trainee troops of tomorrow.
    Four more trips ups later and he was having a little bit of a hard time hanging onto the idea that he was important. He stormed into the kitchen, politely throwing down his platters onto an empty washing conveyor and let a modified mech-leg come from his back to poor juice into a little glass he’d picked up. At least the soldiers could show a little bit of gratitude, at least they could thank him once in a while…at least they could stop tripping him up and throwing him down garbage shoots.
    As he angrily drank his juice he wished, just for a moment, that he could be taller than the soldiers, than he’d get to kick them around for a change. But he knew such thoughts were silly…not to mention dangerous. He was short, he was a drone, therefore, it was his destiny and place in society to work for the joy of others. He should find joy in the fact that he made others happy.
    He put down his drink and smiled, returning back to the massive noisy hall, handing out as many food plates as needed while trying to ignore the mess. After all, while the service drones had made a big mess handing out plates and bowls of food for all the soldiers, it was not their job to clean it up, which was something Beatmixlel was actually glad he didn’t have to do.
    For what seemed like hours but was really only about half an hour the drones worked constantly and faithfully at getting the food to the mouths of the hungry soldiers. The noise eventually died away as the trainee’s exited the hall, leaving nothing but mess and uneaten food and tired drones in their place.
    “PEOPLE!” The shout rang out overhead and Beatmixlel knew he was to be re-assigned again, so soon after he’d barely got a minute to gather himself.
    The service drones gathered back into the hall, around their boss who was now holding an E-pad in her hands. “Ok… We’ll be servicing the general’s office for brunch and a business meeting the 3rd lieutenant Virtra is holding…”
    “Why does a lieutenant need a business meeting?” Bverski asked suddenly.
    Without missing a beat the boss quickly replied, “Shut up.” Before continuing, “We’ll do that for two hours each time before moving on to whatever job we have next. Any questions?”
    As usual, there were none, and thus the mini-meeting was adjured as the boss sent out a wireless, instant update into the drones PAK’s telling them the exact location of their next job and further details, such as names and the personal favourite foods and drinks of the ones they were waiting on.
    The group all walked to their next destination in a crowd, talking and chatting and complaining about the continuous mistreatment by the soldiers. The usual calls of ‘Why doesn’t someone say something’ were there, but again, no one would ever answer. No drone could ever talk to a Taller about this and expect something to be done.
    “You know, maybe we should form some kind of gang…” Beatmixlel mused to himself, “Something so that soldiers would stop picking on us.”
    “Dude,” Bverski replied in his impossibly calm voice, “Just, like, abide.”
    Beatmixlel rolled his eyes, there was no way Bverski would ever take time of out his busy schedule of doing nothing to try and get help his fellow irken. “I suppose so…” He sighed, “Let’s just get this day over with so I can start my weekend.”
    Needless to say, Beatmixlel didn’t know exactly how long of a day still he had ahead of him.

    Beatmixlel’s head landed on the cold, cooling wall of the pilots dining all. Pilots weren’t usually all that bad, they were cocky, arrogant and not afraid to grab a drone’s ass when giving out food, but not mean in the way the soldiers were mean.
    Which was a nice change from the boring general’s office with stuffy elite’s who were constantly complaining and looking down on you, both literally and figuratively. But Beatmixlel didn’t hate them, he didn’t hate his job, he hated the fact that the hours weren’t going by fast enough. His ebooks were calling him! His couch was begging to be sat on! His ass wanted to sit on his couch which was begging for him to sit on it!
    “BEATMIXLEL!” His boss’s voice shouted out from right behind him, “YOU’RE SLACKING!”
    Holding back a cry of sheer exhausted pain, he turned to face her, “I’m on my break!”
    “No,” She shook her head, “Your break ended ten seconds ago!” She sighed and shook her head, “And I thought you were more dedicated then this.”
    Beatmixlel went to argue back, clearly annoyed that she was obviously picking on him, but again, the female butted in before he could talk.
    “You’re going to take an order downstairs to the guard station.” She ordered soundly.
    “WHAT?!” Beatmixlel shouted out throwing his arms into the air, “But that’s totally unfair and it’ll take me all break!”
    “Think of it as your added punishment from this morning,” She grinned evilly, like a small smeet taking the wings off an insect, “You’ll think twice about slacking off now, eh?”
    ‘I’ll think twice about kicking your…’ Beatmixlel sighed in defeat, knowing there was no way out, “Fine… whatever.”
    She pulled out a small case from within her PAK, showing that she had been planning this punishment all along, and allowed Beatmixlel to snatch it from her hand and begin walking out, muttering irken curses under his breath.
    The guards were all very old considering they were almost completely drawn up from soldiers who were too injured or too old to continue fighting. This also meant that they tended to complain about things and take out their boredom or frustration on others. Irken culture wasn’t one that usually respected old people or old things, thus, no body really cared about them, which of course only further caused the guards to be mean to as many people as possible.
    Beatmixlel planned to just hand them their lunch and run as fast as possible before they complained about it, shouted at him for nothing or tried to beat him up for getting some imaginary rule wrong.
    As he walked, he looked up and wondered what the sky was like. Well, obviously it wasn’t as if he’d never seen a sky before, but it seemed like his memory of the sky was fading. The image was there, his PAK could automatically pull up a picture of the sky and flash it before his mind…but it wasn’t a real memory. A real memory had smells, sound, feeling. That cool breeze, that sense of wonder as one looked up at the blazing local sun and just marvelled at the sight of it all.
    He looked back down and shrugged. He supposed he could always just get a job working on the Massive, if it ever got finished. At least that way he could always look out of a window and see the infinite of stars and endless possibilities of the universe.
    But he probably wouldn’t bother. He’d only just started out here and it wasn’t too bad. Apart from…well, most things but he was sure he’d get used to it. Besides, he didn’t have much of a reason to leave Devastis.
    His thoughts were suddenly frozen as the sound of footsteps came towards him. Soldiers, he could tell by the very loud and obnoxious way they talked.
    “Listen,” One of the soldiers voices bounced along the corridor towards Beatmixlel, “Sid, Gyui is so into you, if you just-”
    “No, no, double no, triple no, googolplex no,” The voice seemed to be charming and laughing and growling all at once, how odd, “And some more no’s added on the end of that.”
    Beatmixlel decided that he didn’t want any trouble, especially when he still had a way to go before getting to the guard station and he knew they’d complain if he was even a second late. His eyes hit the floor and he shrunk into himself, hoping that if he thought small they’d miss him and ignore him.
    The voices came closer, “But Sid, dude,” there was a sudden ‘oof’ and the tone changed, “Fine. But you’re missing out.”
    “On what?” The soldiers finally turned the corner and came into view but Beatmixlel made sure to keep his eyes down, even so, he could somehow tell that the soldiers before him were nothing but trouble. “I’d rather not bother myself with people in that way, I’ve got far more entertaining things to do with my time.”
    ‘Just keep your eyes down,’ He repeated to himself as they drew closer, ‘Don’t look up, don’t make a-’
    Suddenly, an arm reached out and grabbed him. It was so sudden that he almost fell over from the force of being spun and pulled to the side of the soldier, who was at least a full half a head taller than him. It was such a shock that he almost dropped the lunch, but his hands clenched down onto it, as if it was the only thing he could protect, even as a vice-like grip clawed onto his arm.
    “You see,” The voice above him announced, “I’d rather do horrible things to drones.”
    Beatmixlel looked up, finally, to see the soldier properly. He had thin features, but by the way he gripped Beatmixlel’s shirt and held his arm, he could tell that the figure had hidden strength. It was his smile however, both on his lips and in his eyes that scared the small drone. He’d seen mean soldiers before, but this guy…something was just, well, dark about him. Something that made one want to run away and hide under the covers and when Beatmixlel turned to see the other soldier, an ever so slightly shorter irken with earthy brown eyes, he could see that he too feared the purpled eyed irken.
    Beatmixlel was dragged, very much against his will, towards the wall where a nearby trash chute was located. He tried to wiggle out of the irkens grip, but his captor was far stronger than he first appeared, and his lock on Beatmixlel’s neck was unbreakable.
    “Now, I’m probably about to ruin this young drones day,” The taller, purple eye’d irken commented as he shoved Beatmixlel to the side of the chute while his friend opened the hatch, “And it gives me far more pleasure knowing I’ve ruined his day, than to go out with some slutty drama queen.”
    It seemed to be all in one movement, the irken grabbing the front of the drones shirt, almost lifting him up from the floor with one arm and throwing him backwards into the chute. All Beatmixlel heard as he fell down, the air whooshing past his antennae, was an echo of, “Sid, you’re a sick dude.”
    The drone had no idea how many bruises he got from bouncing off the sides of the chute, smashing his back and head against the twists and turns of the massive interconnecting tubes that linked up all the garbage routs for this area. At one point, he hit a corner hard and something in his arm snapped, he screamed and his scream turned back on him in the enclosed, black space, ringing everywhere and echoing none stop.
    For the first time in his life, Beatmixlel began to fear for his life. He couldn’t imagine a more horrible place than this chute. The pitch darkness groped and grabbed him, the metal walls smashed and punched him, the smell and noise attacked his senses, causing nausea and confusion.
    If he ever believed in a hell, he was sure that it would be like this. But probably hotter. And with spikes.
    Through all his pain, he could hear something approaching, some loud, grinding noise and the sound of water sloshing about. Somewhere, beyond his excruciating pain and loss of direction, he knew that he was about to land and it wasn’t going to be nice.
    He only saw a flash of the sickly green, disgusting brown and toxic yellow coloured water before he hit it, hard. It slapped him, almost knocking him unconscious, but the smell and the taste and the general disgustingness of it all shocked his body into waking.
    Immediately he activated his PAK legs to try and lift himself up above the water, which seemed bottomless, however, they couldn’t grab anything, they only scraped along the blank, emotionless walls of the garbage holder. He couldn’t open his eyes because the water was so toxic, it burned them. Pain was beginning to erupt all over his body as his skin reacted to the mass of infections and toxins in the water.
    He couldn’t breath, he couldn’t see, everything was blacking out and closing in around him. He felt nothing but pain and saw nothing but darkness. He was falling into the darkness of acid-waste.
    Then, light, and a hand reaching into the darkness for him.
    Beatmixlel barely felt a hand grab his own, but he felt himself being pulled up and the toxic waste pushing against his face burning and scolding more and more, almost as if it was trying to destroy him before he could reach the top. It was refusing to let him go, it wanted him to stay, to float forever with the rest of the garbage.
    But when the air hit him, the pain melted away, and the light became brighter. Something, someone was there, someone was in front of the light, shouting to him, but he couldn’t hear since his antennae hurt so badly. His whole body ached and pained and all he wished to do was sleep for a thousand years.
    However, his PAK wouldn’t let him. Already he could feel it’s systems rushing though him, in-build medication going to every part of his body that needed it and it’s computerized voice echoing in his brain, telling him it was going to shut him down whilst it worked his nano-tech medicine on him.
    Everything faded to black, but he could still see the light-being, even as everything else faded away…
    Beatmixlel was unsure if he believed in anything, well, ‘spiritual’ as others put it. The Empire barely tolerated religion as it was, and ones like Ikanism and Ritsam never appealed to him but right now he’d ask any greater-being that was listening to stop his body from pulsing with agony.
    ‘Please,’ He begged as he felt his limbs returning feeling, his eyes still shut tight, ‘Please just… someone help me…’
    “Hey!” The voice forced it’s way into his mind like something wading through mud, “Hey? Can you hear me?”
    Beatmixlel groaned and his eyes opened slowly, squinting as they adjusted to the light, however, his breath almost vanished when he saw it again, the light-being, a silhouette against the brightness, looking down on him and protecting him with a voice of something pure and wonderful.
    However, his eyes adjusted, and the silhouette became more pronounced, it took on the shape of an irken, a female, with a technician’s uniform.
    Her eyes came into view, and they were the most beautiful shade of deep, passionate red. Her face was perfect, with soft lips, subtle green skin and shoulder-length antennae which curled sharply.
    Her uniform was body-forming, showing of her slim-line figure, with big silver shoulder pads and it ended in a sort of tail which didn’t quite touch the ground.
    Beatmixlel looked around, he seemed to be in some kind of office, but it looked more like a bedroom. There was a desk covered in office supplies and papers and mugs whilst pictures were stuck up on the wall, along with a calendar. From what he could tell, this was some kind of engineering space, as there was a rack of tools and a big toolbox near the door. He reasoned that this must be a check point, one where they kept people in overnight in case of emergencies.
    The smell of oil and dirt hit him, and it made him feel light headed.
    However, his eyes came back to the girl, who still seemed to shine with some kind of inner light.
    “You’re awake!” She smiled at him and he felt a wonderful tingling feeling run up his spin, “You must have had a pretty hard fall. You were out for a while. I guess the compactor pool didn’t help much either.”
    Beatmixlel blinked and went to rub his eyes, but his arms hurt too much, so he stopped. “Who-”
    “Am I?” The girl smiled again, “The name’s Zapp, I was doing a checkup on the compactor, so it was shut off when you fell in, lucky eh?” She got up and moved over to the mugs, picking them up and taking them to the wall-build drinks dispenser, “I managed to save you, you almost drowned. Plus, I bet the toxins in that pool burned you up pretty bad.”
    Zapp. Beatmixlel swore to himself silently that he’d always remember that name, after all, it belonged to the most wonderful person he’d met since he got here.
    “I, I have to get to work,” Beatmixlel stammered out, he was still pretty woozy, and he didn’t really know what he should be doing. All he knew is, if he didn’t get back into his duty, his supervisor wouldn’t be very happy with him.
    “Forget it!” Zapp laughed as the drink machine filled the cups up with someone nice and hot, “You need to keep in bed for a least a few days. I’m not a medic and even I can see that.”
    “But… supervisors…” Beatmixlel mumbled out, slowly pushing himself up into sitting position, even though it hurt him like nothing he’d felt before, “They’ll be mad at me.”
    “And will they find you all the way down here?” Zapp smiled at him again as she handed him a mug of hot drink, “Don’t worry about it. No one ever comes down here apart from us engineers. And besides, you only have to visit a medic to get him to back up the fact that you almost died.”
    Beatmixlel managed a small smile, but didn’t drink from his mug. His arms hurt too much to move, although the nice warmth of the drink seeped into his fingers and gave some of the feeling back.
   “Well, thank you, very much,” Beatmixlel smiled back at her, thinking how he should have said that first thing, how stupid of him.
    “Don’t think about it,” Zapp chuckled as she sat next to him on the bed, “It’s all in a days work.”
    “Really?” Beatmixlel asked his eyes wide with amazement.
    “… no,” Zapp laughed and smiled, “This is actually the most active thing I’ve done all month.” She nudged him, despite his ‘ouch!’ and wincing, and quickly asked, “What’s your name?”
    “Beatmixlel,” He replied quickly, “I’m a service drone up above.” He gluped and decided that he’d been through too much today not to ask, “I’m also off tomorrow if you want me to take you to lunch as thanks,” he smiled politely and quickly added, “As a friend of course.”
    “Sure!” Zapp grinned, “As friends!”
    Beatmixlel kept up his smile as he nodded, even though inside, he felt like something had been kicked, hard. Of all the things that had happened that day, somehow, that felt the worst, “As friends.”