held the heavily bleeding nose, with the other she pointed in the direction in which she had left him.


"Tiang!" the captain called out to his henchman, who had just roused Tarkran. "Have an eye on the two of them, I'm going to get Fir!" and stalked off without waiting for an answer.


Tiang came over to her, supporting Tarkran, who could hardly step with his right foot, although Maiju couldn't think of when he could have injured himself.


"You're fucked up!" Tiang began as soon as they sat down next to her. "Turnus lets you get out of the capsule halfway to headquarters, or better yet, he throws you freezers to eat. Can you explain to me what your purpose was with this insane action?"


"The purpose of not getting old and tiny on this planet!" replied Maiju, nasalizing.


"Why old? We'll soon have done the mission!"

"Oh yes, do you think?" Maiju gave Tiang a skeptical look and Tarkran sighed: "Optimist!"


"What do you have? The few residents-"


"That's quite a lot!" Maiju interrupted him.


"A lot? I beg you! On such a planet oven?"


"Of course! You just go out at night and not during the day, so the daily sightseeing flights were a complete waste of time!"


"Say that in rotation - he's coming back! It didn't take long!"


The captain carried Fir more than he supported him and his expression did not bode well. Maiju hardened inside.


Turnus unloaded his load beside them.


A few moments of uncomfortable silence followed as he scowled at the three conspirators.


"And now I would like to hear the reason for this fabulously stupid idea, please!" Finally, Turnus broke the silence, apparently perfectly calm.


Tarkran starts to answer, but Maiju got ahead of him: "We wanted to get off this fucking planet again!"

Turnus gave her a warning: "You will never learn your lesson, girl? But keep talking, and you will get the rub afterwards!"


Maiju forced himself not to give in and went on: "Attacking the inhabitants during the day is absolutely pointless, it is clear that the intelligent creatures avoid the heat in the night! That's why we obey their orders resisted and went on forays at night, all of which were successful! "


She realized too late what had slipped her out of there.


Turnus smiled like a tree snake before it hits: "So you think you're the smarter one again, right? I'll tell you for the last time: keep your cheeky tongue in check and follow my orders, otherwise it'll crack! dead!"


Maiju bowed her head, bitter about his injustice, and Turnus mistakenly interpreted this as a nod, luckily for her. For that he now also pulled Fir and Tarkran in: "Well, you went on forays at night, yes?And they should all have been successful? Should I believe you? At least it is now clear to me why your performance has slipped so deeply! You made yourselves a nice life at night and endangered the success of the mission through your childish behavior!


Maiju wanted to start, but let it go when she remembered the consequences.


A quick sideways glance told her that Tarkran had to feel the same way.


"We will stay here for a while, then we will continue the mission as usual. And look forward to the report!" announced rotation. "You two," he said Maiju, of course, who else, and Tiang, "find something to shove between your gills and flammable stuff!"


“Yes, Captain!” Tiang jumped up and saluted in one movement. "But, Captain, the locals are sure to be edible and it would not be the first time that we have thrown intelligent creatures on the grill!"

"That may be true. All right, then you're just looking for fuel!"


"Yes sir!" Tiang saluted again and dragged Maiju with him when he went looking. However, she vigorously freed herself from his grip so as not to reveal herself again in front of Turnus, and went alone.




"Funny that he accepts your suggestions very well and not mine for the sake of death!" she said to Tiang when they were on their way back, their arms full of dry wood from a dry oasis.


"Hm." came the monosyllabic answer. Tiang preferred to avoid this issue out of loyalty to Turnus. And all the way he said nothing more than that. Maiju's anger didn't diminish that; she began to wonder why the hell she hated Turnus all of a sudden, and what she was actually doing at the command. It did not occur to her that he might see his position as captain threatened by her and therefore demonstrate his superiority to her at every opportunity.

Turnus, on the other hand, completely overlooked the fact that at most he was incurring Maiju's hatred, and that this hatred would accelerate his decline.




It exploded immediately after the mission report at Freezer, where Turnus blamed her for the long duration of the mission. In all, they had been active on the planet for two months, plus the return flight, made for four months of absence.


And when they were back and Maiju dragged herself into her cabin without accepting any help, she collapsed behind the threshold on the spot where Loé found her hours later and transported her to the station. The constant exertion had weakened her too much that she had lost strength even during the month of sleep. They, as well as Fir and Tarkran, each needed five hours in the medi-tank and a week of rest to recover from.


Then they trotted up to Freezer, Turnus did Maiju as badly as he could without accusing her of inciting mutiny, Freezer believed him and gave her quarters for the next ten missions, and the door of the audience room had hardly closed behind them, then Maiju fell on Turnus from behind, tore him off his feet, clinging to each other, they rolled down the stairs, Maiju gained the upper hand and when they came to a standstill, she hit Turnus blindly on the face without bothering about anything else.

For example about Freezer, who had floated over when he heard her cry of rage and the subsequent rumble and was now watching with incredulous astonishment, or about the ring of curious people that had formed around her and was getting bigger and bigger.


Nobody intervened.


Nobody wanted to be killed by Maiju when he tried to separate her from Turnus, to draw her blind anger on himself.


And Turnus did not endure this kind of treatment for long either, but got rid of the girl with one quick movement, but she caught herself in time, pushed herself off the wall, hit him with the whole force of her hard body.


In the narrow corridor Maiju was at a serious disadvantage with her space-consuming fighting style, which Turnus shamelessly exploited.


Three times he knocked her to the ground, three times she got up again, but the fourth time she lay there.


Badly battered, Turnus approached her, limping, with long scratch marks from her claws all over his body, but every inch a winner.

"You thought so, didn't you?" he gasped, bent down to grab her collar.


Faster than most of the soldiers could follow her with their eyes, Maiju wrapped her tail around his ankles, pulled, was over him before he even touched the ground, knocked him unconscious with one last, powerful, two-handed blow.


"You thought so, didn't you?" she repeated Turnus' contemptuous words.


Involuntarily, Freezer's soldiers backed away from her, astonishment and horror mixed on their faces.


The expressions of Maiju's teammates, on the other hand, showed horror, amazement and suppressed glee.


Fir stepped forward, made a movement as if he wanted to pat her on the shoulder, but did not lead her to the end, but whispered: "You have - you have defeated him! You are now in command, Maiju, do you realize that?"


Maiju looked at him startled. She hadn't thought of that at all, she had just obeyed her anger.

"No, she doesn't!" objected Freezer from behind.


Maiju and Fir turned to him.


"But why not, master, she beat Captain Turnus-"


"No buts! I don't want her to take over the rotating command! Your captain will lead you as usual, with the difference that Maiju will no longer be there. And now wake him up again, you make yourself scarce and you come with me, Maiju! "


"Yes Master!"


Freezer turned and steered the anti-grav chair up the stairs. Maiju followed him into the audience room and closed the door on Zarbon's curious nose. She was relieved that she did not have to take the position of Turnus, having considerable doubts about her leadership qualities.


Nonetheless, she asked: "Why don't you want me to be your command leader, master?"


"I did not say that!"


"But she-"


"I said: I don't want you as a captain of the Rotus Command!I don't know exactly what I'll do with you yet, but for the time being you're a lone fighter again as long as I'm not sure about it. But what interests me more at the moment is why you attacked Turnus so suddenly! "He looked at her thoughtfully.


Suddenly the anger boiled up in her again and she uttered violently: "Because he told you damn lies about me!"


Freezer seemed amused: "So? Could you go into details?"


Then Maiju reported to him everything that had happened since her victory over Fir: the fight against Turnus, the course of the mission. She left nothing out or glossed over anything, told everything as it had presented itself to her.


When she finally fell silent, Freezer told her to run away and she gladly complied with the request, pushed Zarbon aside, who wanted to question her and disappeared.


Zarbon shrugged and entered the audience room.


"What are you doing with her now?"

"I'm just thinking ... didn't Captain Chucta just die on a mission?"


"You want to give her the Chucta command,