Dog Aliens
Kaxian Duty
A Short Story
Copyright 2013
Cherise Kelley
All rights reserved.
For more information:
See author Cherise Kelley’s blog
Size 12 By St Patrick’s Day
Table of Contents
Welcome to the Dog Aliens Series!
Kaxian Duty – A 10 Page Short Story
Dog Aliens 1, Chapter 1
About the Dog Aliens Series
Welcome to the Dog Aliens Series!
I’m writing these silly stories for people of all ages who love dogs.
This is a short story of 10 paperback pages. I hope it makes you want to read the series of 200-page books!
Enjoy!
Cherise Kelley
Kaxian Duty
My tail went under my belly and wagged as fast as it could while Dad prepared me one more time by the backyard fence.
“Check the scent messages before you turn.” He turned his head sideways and looked at me.
“Yes, Dad.” I rolled over on my back to show him I knew he was boss.
He licked my belly, which made me laugh and roll around on my back because it tickled, and then Dad raised his nose to tell me I should get up. “You'll find Kaxian Headquarters with no problem, if you follow the scent messages.”
“I'll follow them, Dad.”
I was concentrating hard, so my tail didn’t go under my belly. I was able to keep its wag down to a slower rate than a minute ago, but it was still going pretty fast. I’ve always hated that part of being a puppy: not being able to control my tail. It told everyone exactly what I was thinking!
Not remembering my past lives is a close second on my list of reasons I hate puppyhood. All the grown-ups said the memories from my past lives would come back to me as I got older. I wanted to believe them, but until it happened, I had to take their word for it, which made me feel dependent on them. I didn’t like that.
I’ve loved every set of parents I ever had, though. This life, my dad is a calm German Shepherd. He pulled the skin back from his teeth and smiled at my wagging tail.
“You'll be fine, Clem. Remember, it's the first day for all the other puppies, too. They'll be just as nervous as you are.”
Clumsy with my muscle control, I tried a few times before I managed to smile back at him. Kax! I hate being a puppy!
“You think so?”
Dad amazed me by acting young all of a sudden. He jumped around and wagged his own tail widely.
“I know so. I was a puppy once, you know.”
I sat down and scratched under my collar with my hind foot.
Dad stopped jumping around, sat down in front of me, and lowered his head so that we saw eye to eye.
I tried to make him understand my situation.
“My head knows you were a puppy once, but only because you’ve told me so. The memories still aren’t coming to me.”
Dad licked my face a few times. “One thing at a time, Son. You want to be a defender, right?”
All by itself, my tail wagged widely. I didn’t mind too much, because that made Dad smile.
He nuzzled my neck and spoke in a soothing tone the words that later on, I wished I had heeded.
“Yeah! You want to be a defender, so hurry and get to your first day of Kaxian Duty on time today. Do your best at that. Worry about the memories another day.”
Third on my list of things to hate about being a puppy is the short attention span. Clarity of purpose is not my strong point, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Dad was there right then. Sigh. I closed my eyes and snuggled against Dad for a moment.
He nosed me until I opened my eyes. “Remember, if you get into danger, call on Kax for help. If the Niques bother you, just run.”
I panted to show I understood.
“I’ll remember.”
Dad smiled at me again, and then slapped his front paws down.
I slapped mine down to match, as he’d taught me, even though I knew by the way his tail was wagging slowly that he wasn’t going to attack.
Dad’s voice came out fast and loud as he noted the time by the lay of the sun’s rays. They were peeking up from behind Headquarters Mountain.
“OK! Go ahead! Dig your hole and get going, off to duty. You can tell us all about it when you get home."
Mom had come to see me off, too. They both licked my head once to tell me, “Kax be with you.”
They blocked the view from their human’s den while I dug under the fence.
Looking back once to see Mom and Dad wagging their tails goodbye to me, her Queensland Heeler body slightly smaller than his, I ran down the dirt-and-gravel alley toward the first scent post.
Wow, I'm out of the yard!
An orange and white cat’s eyes glowed from the shadow of a cinder-block wall. When she knew that I’d noticed her, she put her ears back. Her tail whipped the ground once before she leaped up on top of the wall, hissed at me, and snarled out insults.
“Go home to your moldy old planet, you filthy alien!”
She had insulted Kax! I looked around for a way to get up there. Seeing where the ground sloped up a bit at the end of the wall, I ran over and up on top of the wall.
She jumped down then, of course.
I ran back to the slope and down into the alley again, and then the chase was on!
I was gaining on her!
I was going to get her!
But then she turned toward the street.
I started to turn after her. That’s when an odd thing happened.
One second, I was chasing the cat with complete abandon, angrier than I’d ever been in my life―all three months of it. The next second, the first scent post appeared in my mind. A second after that, Dad's voice sounded in my memory.
“Check the scent messages before you turn.”
I shook my head, and that led to shaking my whole body. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't very big when I was three months old. I know.
I gave up on the cat. I needed to get to Headquarters early so I would get to be a defender. Proud of making the right decision, I went to sniff the first scent post, a telephone pole. It told me to turn right. I left my own scent message so others would know I was on my way, and then I turned right.
I was running down the sidewalk, minding my own business, when two Niques saw me from behind their pristine white picket fence.
They were grown-up Chihuahuas, but they both stuck their tongues out at me and crossed their eyes! And then, on their tiny little legs, they ran to the door of their human’s den, scratched at it, and called out.
“Humans!”
“A Kaxian’s loose outside!”
“Call the dog catcher!"”
“Catch this Kaxian yourself!”
“Take him to the animal shelter!”
“He’s dangerous!”
“He’s going to hurt us, Humans!”
“Help!”
The Niques are such liars! Those two made me mad, even though I knew their humans would just hear a noise like wolves barking.
Humans can’t understand us aliens. They call us dogs, and even the Niques go along with that. It’s the one thing Kaxians and Niques agree on:
No humans can know that dogs are aliens.
We weren’t agreeing on anything right then. These two annoying Niques were still telling lies about me!
“This Kaxian is a known thug, Humans!”
“He comes around here every day, trying to hurt us!”
“Help us, Humans!”
“Open the door!”
“Come out and get him!”
I was
running up and down their fence, searching for the best place to get through it, over it, or under it.
“You’ll be yelling, ‘Help!’ with a different tone when I get in there!”
I couldn’t wait to make them stop telling lies about me. They were smaller than me even when I was only three months old.
But that odd thing happened again. The sight of the next scent post came into my mind. A second later, Dad's voice came into my memory again.
“If you have trouble with the Niques, then just run.”
Heeding my memory of Dad, I just ran on by those two lying Niques in their yard. My heart beat extra fast for the next mile or so, until I figured no human could catch up to me. Then my heart slowed to normal speed.
I did well after those two distractions. I didn’t chase the squirrels in the park. I didn’t tip over the garbage can that smelled like French fry crumbs. I understood what was going on. Somehow, Kax was making sure I got to Headquarters on my first day of duty.
The scent trail led me first up into the barren hills outside the town, and then deep down into a cave.
Yeah, the cave was dark, but that didn't scare me. It only smelled like Kaxians down there. Half way down, I could hear Kaxians talking, more Kaxians than I had ever seen in my whole three months of life. Yeah, I know that's not long. Anyway, I recognized some of their voices. We Kaxians talk to each other across great distances, and I had heard them from home.
At the bottom of the cave, I stopped at a metal door and heard a computerized voice.
"Identify."
Of course, if humans went down there with flashlights, they would just see rocks and hear a wolf barking. The metal door is well-disguised.
Glad now that Dad had explained all this to me over and over, I put my front paws up on two metal rocks and held my eyes open while the computer scanned me and verified that no non-Kaxians were with me.
The metal door opened soundlessly to a dark room, and I went inside. The light came on
Dog Aliens: Kaxian Duty - A Short Story Page 1
