JustineLloyd

By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.

You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.

The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.

“Casualty reports topping fifteen thousand, Ma-el Jhlorx-seien, six dead by the weaponry of the dominant biped lifeforms, twenty-three from the small quadrupeds with which they form symbiotic relationships with, and the rest from being poisoned by a tiny life-form known as moh-skee-toh.”

“Fifteen thousand from a bug?” The word in Mahalojorhix is effectively cognate with insignificant, and the Ma-el reflects that for the first time in twenty-six planetary conquests, her language has need of some new word to accurately describe something.

“The not-bug bug,” the messanger is trying, and Jhlorx-seien tries not to wince, “appears to inject a terrible caustic toxin into their bites, presumably to liquify the yellow blood cells into a slurry for easier digestion.” He frowns. “Only humans don’t bleed yellow, they bleed red, so perhaps it is different for them.”

One of the trainee destined commanders to the Ma-el’s right vomits at that, half-digested exoskeletons and a couple of gizzard stones hitting the floor in a spray of mauve stomach acid, and then drops to the ground, bright with embarrassment, to clean up her mess. The other one looks just as ill, but only says, “Red blood? Disgusting!”

“Regardless,” says the messenger, “everyone bitten by a mosquito has collapsed, dead before they hit the ground, within moments of the mosquito’s penetration of their skin.”

Ma-el Jhlorx-seien massages the base of her ocular spikes. “Go consult with the xenobiology team,” she orders, and turns to greet the xeno-specialist loremistress who has, from the look of things, sprinted halfway across the ship.

Blackness Castle

Built as a residence for the powerful Crichton family, but this auspicious start soon gave way to a chequered history.

Seized by James II, it remained in Crown ownership, initially as a garrison fortress and state prison.

It has undergone many alterations, but it could not withstand the onslaught of Cromwell’s artillery in 1651.

Redeveloped in 17th century, it remained an important military base until the 1870s when it became a munitions depot.

It fell from military use in 1912 and, despite a heavy-handed restoration in the 1920s, retains much of its rugged charm

Blackness Castle stood in for Fort William in Outlander, I think in at least two episodes but I might be wrong.