The winner - Food Fight by Roy

Replacing the half-eaten roasted femur in the ice-box, Missmatthews sighed. “There’s nothing so tasty as a bit of thigh meat before bed," she said to herself. Mrmatthews was asleep and she didn’t want to wake him. He’s such a bear when he is disturbed. She went about the cook alcove, tidying up after the repas and then requested a small Turbulan green salad for balance. Missmatthews was pregnant, six days now, and craved greens, usually detestable in a Crocpup's diet. Mrhubblar came in and surprised Missmatthews. “What are you doing up? It’s not your time.”
“I don't know. The sleep chamber cycled me awake and I’m hungry.”
“I ate the femur and part of the torso already, so you’ll have to defrost some other roast or maybe a kidney or liver.”
Mrhubblar frowned and shuddered. His long crocnose crinkled up and his eyes teared. “Y’know how much I hate organ meat, Ma. I hate it. I won’t eat liver!”
“Dear, how do you expect to grow up strong and mutant like your father? You got to eat organs to assimilate them into your connective tissue.”
“I wish we never invaded Earth. They are tasteless creatures, same old, all the time. Too fatty for me, y’know, ma. Too bland. Yeccch!”
“Well, you know how the Federation dictates the harvest. They insist on bleeding the herd and collecting the blood for the district nurseries. You can’t have your meat and eat blood, too. You were weaned six months ago, so get used to eating organs and whatever else is on the bone.”
“Ma, not fair. I saw Mrmatthews sipping a red bloodwine last night. When am I old enough to imbibe, hah?”
“Impudent!”
“Sorry, but grown ups are unfair to us kids.” Mrhubblar trounced out of the mainroom and slammed the door to his sleepcubicle. Missmatthews heard the hiss of the sleep chamber and sighed. “He went to sleep without his dinner. Kids, they never want to eat right.”
***
The death ray penetrated the hull just slighly under the slipstream generator, whisper soft, but Missmatthews heard it. Her second set of eyes glowed red with anger. “Marauders! Must wake Mrmatthews immediately!” She sat at the hypnoconsole and turned it on max. The rings and spirals assailed her two sets of eyes and put her into the coma. Another ray pierced the luggage area and opened the cargo bay to deep space. An immediate response from the Aeroship sealed the zone and restored nitrogen balance to a livable sixty two percent, adding a pressure stream of nitrous oxide and sulfur monoxide in five percent saturations. The Aeroship was designed to react instantaneously to five such hits, but the mirror shielding would not reflect more blows unless Mrmatthews awoke and reset the count. He had the code to cloak the ship from further harm, but they’d all be in stealth mode until the invaders gave up and left the region.
The hypocycle ended and Mrmatthews emerged as dominant. His roar was heard several parsecs away. Overwhelming hunger and resentment at the attack mixed as his sleepgrog left him for more immediate issues. Mrmatthews hated anything that disturbed his sleep cycle, most of all, races who ate Crocpups. As a prince Croc his anger was, of course, justified. His first duty was to his family and then to the nation on the prowl. Food was plentiful from Earth, so marauder intrusion was disturbing to the century long feast. Most races were inedible, and marauders usually weren’t fussy at what they ate. He knew that they were after the frozen city cargo Matthews carried.
Mrmatthews slammed his forepaw into the weapons console, unable to focus on strategy. The six weapons responded to the controls and dispersed two laser cannons, three death rays and a feeble phaeton burst. The burst lit up the sector but did little else. But dumb luck ruled and one death ray hit the propulsion tank on the attacking ship and blew it to Orion in molecular size pieces. The cannons missed their mark, continued on the trajectory and, unfortunately, decimated two moons of Jupiter. “Crapona!” But Mrmatthews knew not what havoc his anger caused. It was a costly mistake.
The radio buzzed and visscreen lit up. “Matthews!” The voice was the prime minister.
“Yes, sir.”
A raspy harumpf filled the forward cabin. “Explanation?”
“Sir, I - I was at war with the marauder ship and accidently shot two Jupiter moons.”
“Blast you, Matthews!”
“But, sir, the marauder ship-”
“And what are we going to eat now?”
“Sir?”
“You blundercroc! Those moons were our storage sites for the entire planet. All the humans and all the blood is vaporized!”
“Gone? Sir, I didn’t know.”
“Come in, Matthews. Right now. We’re bringing charges of treason against you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mrmatthews shut down the communications console and sat. His four eyes teared and thin red tongue darted out with increasing alarm. “What will we do? No food and they’re blaming me? I didn’t put the humans, all of them, on two moons. I didn’t impose secrecy so no one knew. I didn’t intentionally do anything wrong, but I’m at fault. It’s not fair!” His forepaw slammed into the sleepconsole and released Mrhubblar from his plastic cocoon. Actually, his paw went through the console and insured that the sleepcubicle would never work in the kid’s lifetime. “Well, I’m on a roll. All I ever do is destroy stuff.” His only chance was to wake Missmatthews. She’d know exactly what to do in this predicament.
***
The hypnocycle ended and Missmathews emerged dominant, shrouded in sleep and unwilling toward alertness. Within a timesec she became fully aware of the situation. Mrmatthews was still awake and babbling faster than she could assimilate his thoughts. Food destroyed … moons … sleepcubicle … anger … don’t wake me up, ever… She thought, “Just like him to leave his mess for me to clean up.” Missmatthews stood and felt the weakness of the interrupted sleepcycle. Holding onto the console she heard Mrhubblar stirring, a low grunt, swear words he’d never say in front of her. “Mrhubblar, get out here! WE have work to do!”
She traversed the cabin in record time, all eight steps in a timesec, accessed the power schedule and saw she had enough crystal power to go to slipstream. Where to go? Mrhubblar came out and shook off grog, allowing tears to drip from his eyes. His pointed teeth flared outward, a sure sign of overhunger. “Ma, I need an organ or else I’ll drop. But no liver.”
“Help yourself, kid. I’m trying to figure out an escape route.”
“Escape? Who are you escaping from? Marauders?”
“No, your dad managed to blow the food moons to smithereens, so we’re up for the traitor award of the century. Dad’s got a million jeebees bounty on his head, and I’m damned if I’m spending my life in prisonhell with him on my mind.”
“So you can say “damn” and I can’t? How fair is that?”
“Eat your organ meat and shut up.”
Missmathews charted the Aeroship into the Sparseland sector, a place uncharted by Crocpups. The area was given up to hide marauders and not policed by the Federation. But our food supply would be a grand prize to just about everyone there. In fact our food locker'd be up for grabs by all the Crocpups because there weren’t any more bodies to eat. I'm alone out here, alone!" The relay processor found a distant sector with a wormhole, but it'd be dangerous to go there. “Just the place to flee to. Just short of the wormhole, that’s the plan.”
“Ma, where’re we goin’?” The Aeroship was just about there.
“Shut up and eat your organs!” Missmatthews by now sounded more like Mrmatthews, but it couldn’t be helped. She flipped the switches on the console with one talon and heard the slipstream generator ramp down. At the same time a death ray came from their aft, colliding with the initiation of slipgeneration. A blue flash filled the cabin and shook every molecule in their bodies, like a severe electric shock. The sensation subsided as the ship powered down slowly and then stopped. The slipstream generator was not functional. They went through the wormhole and went nowhere, one big dumb loop. Missmatthews sighed, saw the vision in her eyes of chains on her back legs, dragging a heavy beam around an eight by ten cell forever. “Crocpups live, oh, ten centuries? Maybe I’ll learn to screen out his voice by then. Or else go insane and won’t care.”
“Matthews? Are you okay there?” The crackling voice of the prime minister filled her ears. She began to cry and tremble. The visscreen went on, even though it was not working before. “Missmatthews, dear? What happened?”
“Uh, sir, I really don’t know. I’m not good at this sort of thing.” Missmathews decided to plead incompetence, maybe get off with just an hour rant and maybe a mind meld separation.
“We saw a disturbance in your sector and thought we’d check in?”
“Yeah, disturbance.”
Mrhubble piped in. “Yeah, sir, marauders all over here. Pa is asleep.”
“Marauders, you say? Well, we’ll have to send a patrol out there to protect you. Right away. Hey, this is not known, but stay away from Jupiter’s moons. Official government projects underway. Don’t want any friendly fire to hit the moons.”
“We already hit-” A forepaw slapped Mrhubble in the snout with lightning speed.
“Sir, he’s just a kid. Excited, but we already hit a marauder ship and it fled into space. I think we’re safe for the moment, kind of shaken, but okay.”
“Well, you hold on. Tell Mrmatthews we commend his trust in you both to hold the ship while he gets his needed sleepcycle. Out.”
Mrhubble looked confused. Missmatthews opened the cooler and found the femur she had eaten just parcycles ago. “Cause to celebrate, kid. We get to live another day.”
“So, do I still have to eat the liver?”
“We’ll wait until your father is back.” She teared all her eyes, but all were expressed joy. “There’s nothing so tasty as a bit of thigh meat before bed," Reliving the moment, she thought it strange, an overwhelming desire that all three be at the diningplace together, like she heard was done on Earth.