Ridley lay spread-eagled on the volcanically heated tile, relishing the warmth soaking into his bones.  A lengthy surface mission had left him feeling chilled and sluggish.

Unlike many reptilian species, he was capable of maintaining his own body temperature, but he still found it draining.  He was getting old, he reflected.  Ridley pressed his chin into the floor to feel the heat on his throat as his metabolism slowly spooled up again.

Basking usually helped his digestion too.  Earlier that day he had spent some time hunting, devouring a whole clan of squirmy little mammals.  A scavenger by nature, he could eat pretty much anything, but dead things (or worse, the protein ingots the pirates provisioned him with) were less satisfying than a real, bloody, squirming meal.

Things were better without fur, he thought, but he'd been having too much fun to take the time to skin them.  They were pretty small, anyway -- it would have been a frustrating and fiddly operation.  Hopefully his stomach would not punish him for it.

Ridley turned his head to the side to feel the heat on his cheek and exposed gums.  The mammals.  The last few had collected in a quivering heap under a rock outcropping, and failed to run when he turned it over.  Why did they do that, anyway?  He'd seen it sometimes before.

The first, most obvious, explanation was that it was a ploy to avoid being picked off individually.  Not that it helped much in this case; all together, they were not much more than a mouthful.  Then again, running would have been futile too.

He turned his head over thoughtfully, working the other side of his face into the hot masonry.  He had surprised a nest of snakes once, actually.  But it was a very cold day on that world; as far as he knew, they were simply congregating to conserve heat, a motivation he could readily understand.  For his own part, basking in the lava-choked ruins was quite sufficient.  He did not like to be touched.

Ridley thought a little more.  Not totally true.  When he was very small his mother would carry him and his siblings (most of whom he had later eaten) from place to place in her mouth, to protect them from the other adults.  It hadn't bothered him at the time.  Probably the huddling response was something similar, albeit stupider.  Other species had done little to impress him with their intelligence.

They wasted their dead, for instance.  After his mother died, he and his surviving siblings had eaten the corpse.  Most other species simply abandoned the fresh meat, or stared at it like they didn't make the connection.  Forgivable among herbivores, perhaps.  At least the more intelligent omnivores and carnivores usually buried their dead, which would help the flesh keep a bit longer, but then they never went back to dig it up.  What was the point?

Even the Chozo, who he had more than the usual respect for, did this. Oh, he did hate them for invading his territory -- they were latecomers to his world -- but they had been ruthless hunters, and he could respect that.  Still, like so many other species, they had always failed to do the obvious thing with their dead.

Ridley had nosed through the Chozo necropolis once, after the pirates had looted it.  Such a waste.  There was very little left worth eating.  Ridley yawned.  Fresh Chozo was pretty stringy to begin with.  He paused for a while, remembering.  Chozo tasted kind of like stringy chicken, actually.  He smiled slightly and dozed off.

A metallic sound.  He opened an eye to see one of his pirate guards standing in the doorway.  Apparently they wanted him for something. He closed his eye again.  He'd go when he was ready.  The trooper knew better than to enter his sanctum.

The Space Pirates, he mused, were delightfully egalitarian.  Who else would augment a slavering creature from Lower Norfair, then let it climb the organizational ladder all the way from enforcer to general on merit alone?

Fortunately Space Pirates don't taste very good.