the black monarch

“I would name them all for those the gods have taken. The green one shall be Rhaegal, for my valiant brother who died on the green banks of the Trident. The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not.“ 

By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.

You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.

The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.

And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.

But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.

Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.

You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.

The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.

You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.

It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.

Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.

When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.

BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!

You lost Jaxurn to a plant. Not even a mobile or carnivorous plant, just one that caused a vicious allergic reaction on contact that killed him in less than a rai'kor. Commander Vura'ko died to an insect bite, a tiny local pest that sucked a tiny bit of her blood and apparently replaced it with a bit of its last meal, which was full of disease. Backwash. She died to bug backwash. And yet you honestly envy them after that… thing you encountered…

When you got back to base the quarantine officer refused to let you inside. They had to roll a containment tank outside to put you in, because you all knew there would be no chance of eliminating the smell if it got into the ship’s air ducts. Smell. You wonder if your nasal slit will ever recover from this stench.

And the smell would. Not. Leave. After incinerating your gear the Q.O. had you use every cleansing agent they could think of, including a few janitorial ones, and still everyone fled the stench if they were downwind of your tank. Desperate to protect everyone’s nasal slits from the smell the quarantine officer interrogated the humans. From them, a glimmer of hope: there was a cure. Somehow the juice of a certain fruit on this mudball was the only thing that could break up the chemicals in the little horror’s spray. Immediately the Q.O. sent a team to recover buckets of the stuff and made you bathe in it. That was hours ago and it didn’t seem to be working, though. All it was doing was turning your blue skin an interesting shade of purple.

Sighing in frustration you wave the med-assist on duty over, who only approaches after checking the wind direction. Annoyed, you flip on the tank`s vox speaker.

It came for someone almost every night. 

Any soldier alone was a viable target for this native monster that moved unseen by any but the security viewers, usually only spotted in hindsight.  They were taken as silently as this earth-monster moved.  Sometimes they’d find the remains in the morning taken up a tree and hung there, mostly eaten, as if it were a grisly reminder that the monster was still there, waiting unseen, to strike again. 

What little they saw of the monster on the vidfeed showed true horror.  Yellow eyes that shone with all the light it could gather.  It had fangs as long as his grasping digits.  Claws half that size formed curved hooks that allowed it to climb up their fortifications with impunity.  And in the underbrush, its spots made it almost impossible to see clearly in the undergrowth, if it could be seen at all.

Even the native sentients, the humans, had a healthy respect and fear for it. 

The earth natives called the monster a leopard.  

It was a constant fear that muddied the senses, and let the monster hunt even more effectively as the soldiers were always on edge.  Sleep deprived with fear, it made them even better targets for the monster. 

But rumor was that there was worse on this planet.  Rumors of a monster like a leopard but larger, and bigger in every imaginable sense. Stripped instead of spotted, which leaped from the underbrush with a sound.

The troops were not-quite-looking at her in the way troops do when they don’t want to be seen to contradict a ranking officer, but can’t quite muster a correct Expression of Enthusiastic Assent.  “The name of this species,” she pointed out, “is synonymous with dullness and slowness in the language of the Earth barbarians.”  Well, one language out of several thousand—these creatures needed Imperial guidance more than any other world on record—but there was no point in confusing the rank and file.

“I would warn you not to fuck with us, mate.” Their forced guide, a prisioner, had warned with a chilling grin upon capture. “If you think a moose is bad, wait until you tango with a red back.” To this day Tar'van fears the creature known as the red back, and what horrors it would bring.

The prisioner turned out to be of little help,the stubboness of his people causing them to refuse the danger that the captured human warned of. Tar'van recalls a moment when one of his squad members approached a creature know as a dingo, insistent they had seen these creatures before and they were tame. They barely escaped with 5 of the original 7 members of his squad.

Another moment Tar'van recalls was the brutal mauling they witnessed by the hands of a creature called an ‘Emu’

“Don’t feel too bad,” the prisioner mocked. “We lost a war to the Emu’s as well.”

Now with only 4 members of their squad left, including themself, Tar'van had learned to listen to the prisoner, to be wary of the simplest of creatures. This human was of the sub-species of ‘Zookeeper’ after all.

The ‘Zookeeper’ looks off to the distance, where the creature is.

“It’s a kangaroo, leave it be and you’ll be fine.” Tar'van nods, a human signal of acknowledgement if they are correct. The human smiles a bit.

“That creature cannot possibly harm us.” Tar'van’s squadleader protests. “It is so docile. I will aproach it and bring back it’s head to show this human is a fearmongering liar.”

The human reels back, a look of disgust crosses their face and anger passes through their eyes.

“Fucking do it mate, I dare ya.” The human hisses. The squad leader puffs up their hoinn gland, a sign of pride to their species, and aproached the so called ‘Kangaroo’.

“This will be unpleasant.” A squadmate mutters as they watch their leader raise their fist and bring it down on the creature. The ‘Kangaroo’ looks a little stunned by the impact, before it raises itself upon its strong tail and uses its powerful heind legs to launch their squadleader backwards through the air.

Their squadleader lands upon the ground, unmoving with black blooded oozeing from them. It appears Tar'van is the squads leader now.

“I don’t know what they expected.” the human says, smugness filling their tone. “Kangaroos are fucking shreaded. 8-pack and all.”

Tar'van steps forward to the human, whom inches back in a sign of fear as Tar'van pulls their blade from its holster, and in their first act as leader, frees the human of the bonds around their hands.

Five team mates.

Only four of them would return.

They crunched through the underbrush paying no heed to the sounds of insects around them but there was one odd sound…

Tee'ka stopped the group leader and motioned their apprehension at the sound. The team leader scoffed and kept on walking. Then he started screaming.

Something dark and sinuous moved away into the night, the strange sound ending and team leader was already dead. Tee'ka took this as a sign and led the others back to their ship.

They buzzed into the prisoner’s enclosure and described the sounds and the sight of the animal to the human within.

“I told y'all to look out for rattlers. Rattlesnakes. Seems like y'all are more affected by them than we are.” a grin “we’ve made anti venom. We survive.”

The human insisted to stay in their little… tent as he called it, wearing furs of dead mammals. 

They did not see her smirk, or her chuckle as they left to explore. 

Everything here was solidified or fuzzy dihydrogen monoxide, nothing could live here. 

They were wrong. 

Only two came back, as they had encountered what they had thought was something fragile, something frail. 

It had been a small, lighter colored bear. Probably the size of of one of their ekfuns at home, so they decided to bring it with them. It’s cry’s of distress were bothersome, but they brought the abyss upon them. 

This was a child, and it’s mother was far from happy… or small. 

They had been prepared for the darker colored forest dwelling bears, but this one? 

No.

They were now in understanding as to why the human stayed. 

When two returned, she smiled and wiggled her fingers at them. 

“You’re in the desert bud, everything bites back in the desert,” the bulky human said.

“Quiet human, you will talk when asked a question,” Squad leader Kro’kar barked at him, he just smiled and sniffed in disgust. Then he sniffed again and color drained from his face. Kro’kar could smell the stench as well. “What is that smell?”

“Oh nothing, just a pig,” the human was moving closer to a tree. Just then a small hairy pig snuffled out of the underbrush. The human was scrambling up the tree now. 30 more of the pigs came out of the growth just as one of the squad members shoves the pig out of the way.

Out of the 6 member squad, only two make it up trees in time to save themselves from the bigger pig’s tusks.

“What kind of pigs are those,” the new squad leader, Teek’la asks.

The human howled with laughter, despite the obvious tears tracks on her face. “Silence!” Squad Member Far’Tur said. The human muffled her laughs. “You lot are very jumpy. Wonder what’ll happen when you notice the scum there,” she said haughtily, though there was a hint of fear in her voice.

“What are you talking about-” Squad Member Har’Pau said before a scream from another of their members ripped from their vocal cords as the member fell to the ground, terrible blisters surrounding their ankle and slowly spreading up till the knee. A sand-colored bug was on the ankle, stabbing it with an arching limb from it’s back.

“What is that?!” Squad Member Far’Tur said as he and the other remaining squad members crawled back, no trees in sight. The human chuckled darkly. 

He brought the food to the prisoner, a female of the species. One of the darker skinned variants, though he couldn’t tell which. It was so hard telling one human from another.

She gave him a look as he set the tray down. “Do you want me to tell you a secret about humans?”

Her tone was not that he’d come to realize was ‘mocking’. The humans, he learned, took significant joy from seeing his kind fall to their own hubris. Curious he asked “Why would you tell me this?”

“The why is part of the secret. Human societies, different as all they are, are all built on cooperation. All human have what I’ve heard referred to as a strong ‘pack-bonding’ instinct. And we will bond with almost anything if we can see ourselves in it. None of the others will listen to me, despite me having more experience with this planet. I am only here to be mocked. I’m not allowed a weapon even though my word and your data both suggest this place is extremely dangerous.”

She looked into his eyes, as though willing him to put it together. She had specified the others, not himself (Which was true, he listened to what she said-it was the best chance to stay alive). But why point that out? He was well aware of how she was treated and…it clicked as he realized her treatment mimicked his own.

He must have shown some reaction, because she nodded. “How do you think this invasion is going to end?”

“The glorious Empire-” One eyebrow cocked up, a human sign of disbelief. “I think we’re all going to die. The while empire will be sent here over time just to die against this insane death world.”

She nodded satisfied. “Do you want to die, Nuk’Var?”

He was startled by the use of his name. He shouldn’t have been, she’d obviously been paying enough attention to noticed their similar treatment. “No, but I see no recourse.”

She smiled at him, again not a mocking one. This one was more reassuring. “Don’t worry, leave it to me.”

He should tell the commander. This human had decided to bond with him over their similar treatment. They could use this…

For what? No amount of human intelligence would be listened to. Life saving information would be ignored. And he’d still be sent to a pointless death.

With that in mind, Nuk’Var made a decision unthinkable to any soldier of the Empire.

~

“Well human, is it safe to cross here?” The Commander asked. Of course, even if she said no, they’d be crossing. Nuk’var was convinced there was something in the atmosphere of the planet that made his people idiotic.

“Sure, should be fine. Go ahead.” Their prisoner said a little too cheerfully. Enough the commander noticed.

“Why don’t you go first then?” He ‘suggested’.

“And have that coward Nuk’Var go with her.”

“Good idea,” The Commander grinned.

Nuk’Var internally fumed.  Those stupid, blind-

“Swim smoothly,” The human said, in a voice just low enough for him to hear.

This was a plan! The human was planning something, probably something bad for the others, but was sparing him. Years of training once again told him he should share the information, but considering they had just sent him to a potential death with a smile, he kept his mouth shut. He may be a traitor, but they betrayed him first.

The crossing was as smooth as any river would allow.  Once they climbed on the opposite bank, the others followed.

The human watched and waited, her hand on one of the tall thin plants near the waterside.

“Are we going to run?” Nuk’Var whispered.

“Not until we know they won’t be catching us.” The human replied, still watching the team.

Then suddenly she broke the plant (twice at tall as she was, but about the width of her finger) and began thrashed the tip into the water, hitting several of the others in the process. 

“Human, you’re pitiful attack is nothing against ow ow AAAAAHHHH!!” The Commander and the others began screaming as blood blossomed in the water. The others frantically began trying to swim back, but each stoke showed limbs missing chunks, occasionally with a flash of silver or red.

“Piranha,” The human explained. “They won’t attack anything that seems to be healthy, but blood and thrashing causes feeding frenzies.”

Nuk’Var could only nod slowly as he watched his former until be consumed in only a few quarniks. “Now what?”

“Now we find the human resistance.”

“There’s a resistance?” None of the reports had indicated any such thing.

Storefronts, St. Louis, Missouri, 2016–2017