Knox's grin returned, slow and sharp.
"There she is. Just the lady I wanted to see."
The Queen did not acknowledge the bows of her subjects, nor the hushed scrape of their antennae against the floor. Her eyes were fixed only on Knox.
"Raise your heads," she commanded. Her voice was sonorous, carrying the weight of an empress. "Your conduct is an embarrassment. Leave us."
The soldiers hesitated, glancing at one another.
"Now."
They scrambled out without another word, sealing the chamber door behind them. The only thing he could see in the dark were her glowing pink compound eyes.
The room was bathed in silence.
Knox leaned back against the wall, chains rattling softly. His grin hadn't faded, though his swollen lip split a little further with the effort.
"You know, I did not know you were the queen. I totally would've dressed nicer if I knew I was gonna meet royalty today."
Vanella tilted her head. "Your impertinence is not nearly as amusing as you think."
"Eh," Knox shrugged. "I try my best."
The Queen stood motionless, her compound eyes fixed upon him.
Seconds dragged.
Knox shifted, chains clinking softly. "…Sooo-"
"What is it that you want?" She cut him off.
He blinked. "…What? Pretty sure you're the one who captured me. Shouldn't that be your line?"
"Do not take me for a fool," she replied evenly. "You requested my presence for a reason. Speak the reason and I may listen."
Knox's eyes narrowed slightly. The other Chitinari hadn't called her after he asked them to, they'd just gotten angrier. Which meant that she heard him herself from the start.
Perhaps she was even watching him. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for an interrogation room to have a one-way glass wall. Or cameras, for that matter.
"Alright, fair enough," he said with a shrug. "But don't think I didn't catch that wording you used. You'll 'listen' to my request, but that doesn't mean you'll consider it. So how about we do this is in good faith. I'll answer honestly whatever questions you've got. Then, you'll consider my request earnestly. Deal?"
Her gaze sharpened. "You are not in a place to bargain."
"Sure I am," Knox disagreed. "No amount of pain or torture is going to make me spill. Reading my mind is possible, but I doubt you have that ability, otherwise you would've used it already. And if you wanted to kill me, you would've done so already."
Her mandibles flexed once, but otherwise she remained still. Slowly, she tilted her head, considering him.
"...Very well," she said at at last. "But if I suspect you're lying to me, that will be your end. You aren't as valuable as you seem to think you are."
Knox held back from rolling his eyes, instead choosing to give her a 'go on' gesture with one of his chained up hands.
"My champion said you spoke of yourself as a slave. That the force hovering above our planet is not the full strength of your kind. If that much is true, when will this 'true invasion' you speak of come?"
Knox tilted his head back against the wall, eyes half-lidded in thought. "...Not sure. I've only been a slave for a week or so. Could be days. Weeks. Hell, it could happen right now for all I know."
Her mandibles clicked softly, displeased. "Then how many of them are there?"
He grimaced. "Uh, still not sure... But! I do know that each of them are roughly the same strength of Marzette. Or, at least, they should be."
Her antennae twitched. "Each one… the strength of Marzette?"
"...Or stronger." Knox said simply. He wasn't trying to stress the woman out, but it seemed like pertinent information. "And unlike me, I'm pretty sure most of them have training. Purging a planet is more like routine to them than a real challenge."
A faint hiss escaped her mandibles, though her face otherwise remained unreadable. "Then how powerful is their leader? This army seems formidable, but surely they have weaknesses in their higher structure?"
Knox winced, shaking his head. "You, uh, really don't want the answer to that question."
Her eyes narrowed. "Do not mock me."
"Do not mock me," Her voice lowered angrily. "Answer the question as per our deal."
"I'm not mocking you this time," Knox rasped, meeting her gaze. "It's just... you would really lose all morale if I explained how powerful he is in numbers. To put it simply? We are background noise to him. He could singlehandedly deal with this entire invasion without even getting up out of his chair."
The queen paused in her questioning, seemingly content to spend her time absorbing this revelation.
Eventually, the sound of her mandibles rubbing together, sharp against sharp, was the only silence in the room.
If it weren't for the fact that Knox wasn't afraid of her, it would be quite unsettling.
As it was, he only found the sound annoying.
Finally, she spoke up. "You do not know their timing. The numbers of the invasion force are also unknown to you. Your understanding of their strength is inherently shallow, but you insist that they are more powerful than us. Is... is that all you know?"
Knox frowned.
"It sounds bad when you say it like that, but I honestly don't know what you expected. You already said it yourself. I was a slave. Not a soldier or a captain or anything like that. How would I know about anything outside of my cell?"
Her eyes lingered on him, searching, as if trying to peel truth from flesh. Finally, her voice lowered, more thoughtful than before.
"...So you truly are just a pawn. I wasted the only chance my people had of survival... on a pawn."
Knox's grin flickered back, dry and crooked. "Hey, I take offense to that. I'm a damn good pawn! Managed to nearly beat your lot, at least."
She answered his teasing with silence, the gravity of her situation seeming to finally dawn on her.
Then she sighed. "This conversation was pointless. You have nothing of value to offer."
She turned as if to leave, white carapace catching the light.
"Whoa, whoa, hold on," Knox cut in, leaning forward in his chains. His voice was hoarse, but his grin was wide again, almost gleeful. "You're right, I don't know much about the grand plan. But who needs to know all of that, when you've got me? Because I've got the solution to all your problems."
She hesitated in her stride, before finally coming to a stop. Refusing to face him, she simply stopped moving but didn't turn around.
Knox's eyes glinted through the bruises. "I told you I'd answer your questions in good faith. And you didn't like the answers. But they were the truth. Now, though, it's your turn to hear me out."
For a long moment, the chamber was quiet save for the hum of the electrified chains. Finally, she spoke without a single inflection in her voice.
"...Speak."
Knox's smile split wide, bloody teeth flashing in the low light. He leaned forward as far as the chains would allow, voice dropping to a conspiratorial rasp.
"Tell me, Queenie… you got any prisoners down here who deserve to die?"