by M. D. Cooper
Henar nodded slowly, dazed. “This one knows. A shot of inspiration and bliss.”
Selotho’s beady red eyes crawled all over him in ways that made Henar’s blood sing. “Is it just this one?” she began almost shyly. “Or do watching war propaganda make you...aroused?”
Henar jerked around to face her fully. Who is this wondrous female? “You as well? This one just gets an overwhelming…” Heat flooded his face, throat, and chest while he struggled to find the correct word. Then the answer slapped him on the face. “Warlust.”
Selotho brightened at the apropos description. “So much fervor and no worlds to conquer yet.” Her expression turned devious. “Wanna burn off that warlust together?”
“Absolutely!” Henar pounced on her. And Selotho pounced right back.
Burning off all the fervor took some time that evening, during which Henar howled “LEGENDARYYYY!” more than once!
A few days later, the Benevolency warship finally arrived at Earth. They floated just out of planetary orbit, sensory scramblers blocking the humans’ paltry satellites. Henar, Osefa, and Leakki stared out of a wall-length, transparent viewport at the large blue sphere that they soon would be conquering.
Henar wrinkled his nose, unimpressed. “This one almost feels bad,” he admitted. “The humans have no idea what they are up against.”
Osefa shrugged. “Do not feel so bad for these unevolved creatures. A few years after assimilation, they will be thanking the Benevolency for taking over their planet and upgrading their laughable excuse for technology.”
Henar snorted in agreement.
“So true,” Leakki chimed in, cocking his head sideways. “This one can’t believe the humans do not have global ground transport?”
That made all three shudder in disgust. “It’s like they still live in the prehistoric ages!” Osefa remarked.
A chime sounded, demanding Henar and his friends’ attention. A shipwide message. Henar hoped it meant assignments for Observation were to be announced.
“Attention, brave warriors of the Benevolency,” a firm voice boomed on the ship’s communication systems. “As the Observance of the planet Earth begins, you may now access which area of the humans’ culture and infrastructure you have been assigned to.”
Henar looked to Osefa and Leakki, who looked at each other and him. Without a word, squeak, or yowl, the trio dashed down the sterile corridor for the nearest elevator.
They weren’t alone in their fervor, resulting in massive corridor and elevator congestion. Luckily, Henar, Osefa and Leakki had made sure to stay within spitting distance of an elevator at all times, grabbing the first available one they saw.
After getting off on his ship level, Henar raced into the safety of his room and plopped in front of his personal console. The overeager Kavii logged in and checked his personal transmissions. His breath caught.
A new transmission sat at the top of his inbox. Observance Placement.
For a long moment, Henar just stared at the screen to preserve this moment in time. To hold on to the excitement as long as Kaviianly possible. He had dreamed of this moment since he was but a naive pup whose only wish was to join the Benevolency Military.
Open it already, Henar scolded himself. He pressed a paw finger on the screen to access the transmission.
His 50” viewscreen popped up with the Benevolency stars and blade insignia. Henar ignored that and read down the Observance Division he had been assigned to.
Henar gaped, reading it again. And then a third time. “That can’t be right.”
According to the transmission, Henar was not to be assigned to observe Earth’s political systems. Or their military services. Or even their manufacturing and mining sectors.
Henar read the transmission a fourth time, and the Kavii’s heart skipped several beats.
“I got placed in Domestic??” Even saying the words was a knife thrust to the chest.
Domestic. aka The Domestic Living and Culture Surveillance. That meant Henar, despite his high scores in all things active combat and field assignments, would be stuck watching the humans in their natural habitat.
Most soldiers placed in Domestic on their first conquest usually could not achieve enough escape velocity to leave this kind of surveillance on future conquests for the Benevolency.
“Which means,” Henar realized through clenched teeth. “This one’s career is already a laughingstock before it even begins!”
Chapter 3
“You too?” Henar exclaimed when Osefa, Nele, and Leakki all met him for dinner that evening in the fourth-level dining hall.
“Yep,” Osefa admitted glumly.
“Affirmative,” Leakki added.
Nele looked so volcanically angry she couldn’t even speak.
Henar, sitting next to her, warily scooted away. Barely a day since placement and he already could see the shift in other Kaviis’ perception of him. This morning, Setholo stopped by Henar’s quarters. She’d gotten placed in Military Surveillance. And by the gleam in her beady eyes, she clearly wanted to partake in some “legendary” celebrating.
“Where did you get placed?” she inquired.
With great reluctance, Henar told her.
Setholo’s expression instantly soured. “Best of luck, then, Henar,” she replied stiffly, and scurried away so fast, she practically left clouds of dust in her wake. No more legendary copulation for Henar.
“Whatever,” Leakki hissed bitterly. “You can find better sows than that superficial space for brains.”
Osefa nodded in agreement. Nele just grunted and stared at her empty plate.
“How could this be?” Leakki wondered aloud, distractedly eating another pawful of stuffed greens from his plate. “All of us did so well in the academy and with training aboard the ship. Placement in Domestic for all four of us?”
That did strike Henar as odd. Almost as if—
Hoots of laughter burst out from behind him. Cruel, familiar laughter. Eyes narrowing, he turned.
Atiga sat two tables away, holding court with a large group of lackeys including Kamai, Akko, and Setholo. All of them had been placed into Military Surveillance. Atiga pointed his paws at Henar with a smirk, saying something just out of earshot. The whole group glanced over and roared with amusement.
Henar felt his insides clench as recognition crashed into him. “Atiga did this to us,” he murmured just loud enough for his three friends to hear.
Nele whipped her head around at Henar. “WHAT?” Her voice was like a swift slap.
Osefa’s whiskers wilted. “That one made a call to his father,” the shaggy-haired Kavii realized.
“Who then spoke with this mission’s senior personnel,” Leakki added.
Nele shot up from her seat. “This one will castrate Atiga with my teeth!”
She just might have if Henar hadn’t caught her by the arm. “And what good will that do us?”
“It will make this one feel better,” she threw back, struggling against his grip.
As more laughter washed over Henar and his friends, he had half a mind to let Nele go. Seeing her kick Atiga’s behind would be a pleasure to witness. And then what? Another demotion no doubt. The realization curdled his taste for payback.
“Not happening...as amazing as that fight would be,” Henar growled, and forced the enraged Kavii back down. “All we can do is make the best of a bad situation. Excel in Domestic Surveillance and achieve the escape velocity needed to switch to divisions with more prestige.” Domestic placement would not be a death sentence for his career. Henar refused to surrender after all his hard work.
None of his friends shared the same drive. Even Nele, despite her previous fire, seemed deflated.
“You make that sound simple,” Osefa snorted in bitterness.
Leakki was the one now quivering in rage. “Name one soldier placed in Domestic Surveillance that has risen high in the Benevolency’s Armed Forces? One!”
Henar opened his lips to answer. “Of course
there’s…” He thought long and hard. He could think of no soldiers initially placed in Domestic who rose higher in their military careers.
A pang of hopelessness spasmed through his frame. Henar moved his plate away and slumped forward, his forehead smacking the table in front of him. “Our careers have been plutoed, haven’t they?”
“Yes,” Leakki, Nele, and Osefa all said at once, as more mocking laughter from Atiga and his crew collided into them.
Domestic Surveillance training was extensive, and soul-crushing. Surprisingly though, Henar felt the two weeks moved at lightspeed. Small mercies in a future that seemingly had so few. The kind of Kavii placed in Domestic were not ambitious...or physically fit. These Kavii all leaned more toward the doughy side, too laissez faire for Henar to handle them in anything beyond small doses.
Henar tried to keep an upbeat attitude, which wasn’t easy. The planet Earth was his first conquest. Some Kavii never got to leave Benevolency Space, let alone their own planets.
“We’re fortunate, my friends!” he urged his friends once at breakfast. His encouragement was met with sullen silence and a death glare from Nele. So Henar stopped...for fear of being castrated by his friend’s teeth.
The day finally came to descend onto Earth. Henar felt a jolt through his spine. Osefa, Nele, and Leakki regained a modicum of enthusiasm knowing that they would be touching down on a brand-new, non-Benevolency world for the first time in their young lives.
The drop teams numbered 250 strong: fifty soldiers would observe Earth’s many military services, fifty would observe the political systems of the most powerful nations, fifty to observe their manufacturing industries, fifty to observe their cultivation of natural resources, and fifty to observe their domestic living of Earth’s citizens.
Each soldier received a single seed-shaped dropship, replete with food and liquids to last two weeks. They also received mission instructions and locations.
The fifty-strong team stood before two scrawny and short-haired Kavii, their commanding officers for Domestic Surveillance. Both Kaviis’ overeagerness this early in the day seemed enhanced by narcotics, in Henar’s honest opinion.
“You are a part of seeing how these humans live, what their habits are,” the male known as Goab boomed, showing white and needle-like teeth.
“What their vices are,” the female by his side added.
“What cultural mores bind them, and can break them!” The male curled his paws into fists, shaking them zealously. He cast a sweeping gaze over the assembly before him, eyes alight with mania. Definitely narcotics, Henar realized.
“Many may disregard your position. Consider you on the lower spectrum because you were placed on Domestic Surveillance,” the female continued with similar fervor. “But consider this. After a planet is conquered, rebellions and seditions can spring forth in even the most modest homes of our unenlightened subjects. It has happened in many of these Earth countries we now seek to subvert. The data you will gather will help the Glorious Benevolency bend these pack of unevolved humans to the Kavii’s will. Domestic. Is. No. JOKE!” she roared. Everyone jumped, even her fellow commanding officer.
“Is that one trying to convince us or herself?” Osefa muttered to Henar, who had to swallow a guffaw.
After they finished ranting some more, the fifty Benevolency soldiers headed to the flight bays.
“You know,” Nele considered as each soldier readied to enter their dropship, “they have points. We will be the key to stabilizing Earth after the militaries and ruling governments are immobilized.”
“She’s right,” Henar added. He caught a look at the Military Surveillance at the other end of this flight bay. Seeing their proud marches and boisterous shouts pained the young Kavii in his very bones. He tore his eyes away and focused on his three friends.
Leakki remained bitter and dubious. “But who will remember our glory? Who will remember our sacrifice? Those who ascend in the Benevolency Military are those who aid in toppling governments and armies. We are conquering households.”
Henar was about to reply when his turn was up. He stepped into the launch chamber of his dropship. As the doors closed behind him, warm red light bathed the Kavii’s fur. The confines were tight but large enough for him to move around and sit. Once seated and strapped in, the consoles across the chamber lit up. He saw the assignment before him. And the location.
“San Francisco, California State, United States of America,” Henar repeated out loud. Spools of data to absorb scrawled next to the location, along with all kinds of images and audiovisual footage of this city.
“ENGAGE!” a voice boomed, startling him. A low hum in the background, the dropship engine, shuddered through the vessel.
A moment later, Henar felt weightless. The low hum became a steady, distant roar. The young Kavii’s heart leaped into his throat as he realized what just happened. “This one’s mission to help conquer Earth has just begun!”
Much later, Henar stepped out from his dropship into a whole new world.
The lush earth was covered in shrubbery and dark, loamy soil. He looked up. And kept looking up. And kept looking up.
Colossal sentinels covered in red bark towered over him, reaching up into the skies and possibly beyond. Their width alone was stunning. Henar never felt so diminutive in his life. He heard the sounds and calls of the local fauna from every corner of this “forest” around him.
“The humans can’t be that bad if they grow flora such as this,” Henar considered. “We will order them to grow more all over their planet!” He tapped a few buttons on a side console of his dull grey dropship and the vessel vanished. InvisiCloak technology would shroud his vessel from sight, smell, touch, and sound. Only Henar’s wrist computer could locate the dropship when time came to return to the main Benevolency mothership.
“Now,” he said with a grin that showed sharp teeth. “Time to start observing.” From what his wrist console told him, he was in a forest known as Muir Woods Forest north of San Francisco. Not landing in the city assigned to him annoyed Henar for an instant. However, he would have missed this visual around him. Peaceful. Exquisite.
A length of time, or an hour in human temporal measurements, passed before Henar finally emerged from this forest of colossal trees. And sitting before him was a fine, pale swath of powdery rock. Henar remembered those were called beaches, heralds to one of Earth’s water oceans. Waves lapped up against the edge of the powdery rock only to recede back, rush forward, and then recede back. A far-off roar emanated from the rippling oceans, soothing like the sound of a spaceship in flight.
The oceans beyond the beach went on and on. Earth’s sun had already passed its zenith, sinking toward the ocean, casting an orange glow over the waves and the beach.
In the distance on either side, Henar spied far-flung silhouettes of civilization— lofty structures and bridges connecting nearby islands to the mainland. That was where Henar needed to be. Humans in their natural habitat was his mission. Something in that city would lift Henar out from the potential career-killer that was Domestic Surveillance. He could feel it from head to toe.
Henar reached for his wrist console to plot a teleportation course from his current location to San Francisco’s city center. Then he froze.
The beach was not empty.
Two humans.
Tall, long-legged and hairless except for their heads. Henar still couldn’t figure out how they didn’t freeze to death.
The humans, an adult male and female, were obviously a couple. They lay horizontally and unmoving on the beach, swaddled in blankets and each other as they slept.
Henar’s heart leaped. Finding a planet’s native species and observing them in their natural habitat? He moved to step forward. Until his eyes landed on the dog.
Henar almost missed the enslaved canine altogether, lying on the other side of its human slavemasters. The poor beast, covered in shaggy golden fur, was facing the beach. Wearing a collar and leash.
Henar’s
joy soured. His loathing for Earth’s residents returned with a vengeance. Right, this species enslaved those considered of lesser intelligence and economical value. “Don’t fall too in love with this world,” the Kavii reminded himself. Time for some quick reconnaissance. Henar tapped on his console again, skimming through a library of high-pitched noises only a domesticated canine could hear.
After selecting a high whistle of noise, Henar activated. The whine started like a distance, near inaudible call.
The canine’s floppy ears immediately perked up.
Henar upped the intensity. The dog raised its head and turned in his direction.
The Kavii smiled. Come here, canine, and get your freedom. He upped the intensity again.
The dog jerked up to its feet and barked. Its human slave masters were jolted awake by the noise.
Henar swore. If the humans were roused, then this plan would go sideways. The Kavii kept making the noise more intense, higher in pitch.
And the dog rocketed in his direction, barking like crazy.
The humans, fully awakened, lurched up, calling out after the canine escaping their control.
Henar stood and waited as the canine pounded across the sand, leaving powdery clouds in its wake. The humans were running after their escaped slave, too far away to grab the leash trailing after the canine.
The dog made to pounce, teeth bared, paws raised. And Henar hurtled forward, burying a shoulder into the dog’s midsection that drove the air from its belly in a surprised yelp. Just as quickly, he activated his personal invisiCloak.
By the time both he and the canine landed and rolled about the ground, they were invisible and inaudible to any other beings, including the human slavers.
The dog, eager and ferocious in mood, was three to four times heavier than Henar, But the Kavii, quicker, stronger, skilled in combat, and all in all smarter, easily flipped the brazen beast on its back.
The canine thrashed and howled, but Henar had it immobilized by twisting its front paws with his own feet. The human owners dashed past their former slave, yelling out whatever inane pet name they had for it. Their weak senses were unable to see through Henar’s invisiCloak.
