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Chapter 3
Sight
People screamed and fled before them. Hundreds upon thousands of alien crafts dotted the night sky, obliterating everything that stood. Chaos was below him, all around him, as he and his comrades, on individual skimmers, eradicated whatever and whomever the larger ships happened to miss. The blood sang in his veins for each city they conquered.
They searched the destroyed streets, looking for anything that may have survived. The rank smell of blood, smoke and charred bodies was overpowering as the life form detector lens led him to a small alley, strewn with debris from collapsed buildings.
A cardboard box, torn and crumpled, lay innocently beside many demolished rubbish bins. He lowered to the ground by giving the control stick a pull and hopped down from his craft; his blaster was at the ready. He approached the box.
Labored, scared breathing met his ears, but the lens did not lie. He kicked away the box and aimed at whatever would happen to be beneath, and there he found the huddled, bleeding form of an adolescent red-haired girl. She gasped shakily, looking at the alien with eyes wide with fear, constricted pupils shook as terrified tears streamed down her face. A frayed rabbit plush was held tightly in her arms.
The alien leveled the blaster between her eyes, no mercy in the scarred crimson face.
"Good riddance, Pokopenian scum."
BLAM
---
Giroro awoke screaming in a cold sweat. He flailed in confusion as he realized that something held him bound. He struggled around the tent until he fully woke. He panted in terror, face down into the floor of the canvas. His breathing labored, he stared at the ground as the terrified face from his dreams haunted him. After resting a moment in order to gather his wits, he realized he was entangled in Natsumi's shirt. He carefully unwound himself from the garment and crawled back into his pallet, clinging to the fabric like a lifeline.
That wasn't me, he thought desperately. That wasn't me...
By fits and starts and a warrior's will, and by virtue of countless years of training, the little red dream-warrior closed his eyes and fell fitfully asleep. He slept until long after sunrise.
---
Keroro was seated at the kitchen table atop a chair boosted with a mound of old phone directories when his bleary and bloodshot-eyed Corporal dragged himself through the sliding glass door at the rear of the kitchen. Keroro barely glanced away, so intent he was on the tabletop. Stretched out before him were several bottles of fruit preserves, their corresponding fruits, and a plate of sandwiches. A sign on a toothpick proudly proclaimed each of the six sandwiches to be "Lunch". Each whole wheat bread concoction had a single bite taken from it.
"Where's Natsumi?" the Corporal's gruff voice inquired from the floor below.
Keroro glanced down at the trooper. He plucked a single fruit from the table: a small, purplish ovoid and held it between his thumb and forefinger. He ignored the Corporal's query, "do you know what this is?"
Giroro furrowed his brow. Ask a simple question, get ignored. Remember: this fool is your commanding officer. Let's see. It's almost round. It smells sweet with (sniff) a touch of acid. Giroro sifted his memory of the briefings the squadron was given on Pokopenian flora and fauna. Was it poisonous? Very probably not. The conservative answer is very safe. "It is a fruit, maybe a tomato, Sergeant. Beyond that, I don't know." Nor do I particularly care. "Where is Natsumi?"
"It's a grape, Corporal." lectured Keroro, "And it's going to be very useful to us, de arimasu."
Okay. "How?"
"That one I'm still trying to figure out, de arimasu." Keroro flicked the grape at the tall thin jars, "but it has to do with this", he waved his hand in the general direction of the bottles and sandwiches, "Stuff, de arimasu. Maybe we shall decide at the next staff meeting."
"What are my orders for today?"
"Unless you want to figure out a use for grapes," sighed the Sergeant, "breathe on my model to help it dry, or do Master Fuyuki's laundry, you can go to your tent and stroke vents and weapons for all I care!"
The second to last caught Giroro's attention. He grunted an affirmative. Washing Fuyuki's laundry will give me just the cover I need for my mission. I still need one more vital bit of intelligence before I begin. He bounded to a chair seat and then onto the table. He towered, fist on hips, over the seated Sergeant, and all but bellowed the third repetition of his question, carefully enunciating each word: "Where. Is. Natsumi?"
"She's at the Pokopenian training facility, de arimasu." Keroro blinked, as he regarded with dull humor the still bloodshot eyes of the Corporal. "You slept through the morning." And slept badly, from the look of you. He pointed to the Pokopenian wall chronometer, which read 1145, "Have a sandwich, de arimasu. It's nearly lunchtime."
It feels like morning and with the overcast, I didn't notice the sun's position. Still, while the laundry washes and dries, I will have ample time to complete my mission before my Natsumi returns. Giroro turned to the plate, selected the two least odious combinations from the assembled samples and leapt back to the linoleum tile floor. He discarded the bitten portion into the trash and munched thoughtfully on the rest. Pokopenians like everything too sweet.
The crimson frog's mind was already in motion as were his feet. Keroro watched as the Corporal rounded the corner at the far end of the kitchen and was out of sight into the hallway. Keroro returned to his own thoughts. He batted the grape back and forth across the table. By Keron, there's something here; if only I can figure it out, de arimasu. Grapes. Grapes. Grapes?
....
Giroro was shocked. Fuyuki's room reminded him of the fifth moon of Gazora after the Keronian invasion fleet had their say. The room was littered in comics, chemicals, beakers, books, flasks, and food cartons. Rancid clothing hung from chair backs and bedposts. Some of the clothing had even made its way to the hamper, but that didn't explain the pile next to the hamper, nor atop the wooden hutch. Obviously, the Sergeant had been shirking his own chores. Someday all of Pokopen shall be like this room, Giroro thought, and it too shall need a thorough housekeeping. He almost smiled at the thought of the mayhem he would create if he doused the room with napalm and threw in a thermite pack. That would serve Fuyuki and Keroro both right!
He held his breath as he picked his way through the "minefield". His tiny red feet had to be deliberately placed or, he feared, he might injure himself on something sharp buried under the debris. He opened the window, first a crack, and then with a heave all the way. The screen came next and once dismounted a stiff spring breeze blew across his moist face. He breathed fresh air in gulps.
This disaster will air out soon enough, he thought, and leapt over the sill and out the window and easily landed the 4 meter fall. Down on the ground, he turned the corner to his tent. Inside was his surveillance supply, which he wrapped in cloth and packed in his duffel, which he loaded onto the skimmer. He mounted and flew the bag to Fuyuki's open window, tossed in the stuffed duffel, and dismounted. Unoccupied, the skimmer settled to the bushes below.
Well, Keroro, don't say I can't get anything by you. He emptied his kit and hid the contents under the bed. He stuffed clothing into the empty bag. The stench was nearly overpowering even with the window open and he often returned to the aperture for fresh air. After much scrambling about and many a wrinkled nostril, the bag was full and he dragged it two-handed, alternately pulling and pushing, until he could roll it down the stairs, where it bounced against the wall. With more pushing and pulling he dumped it down the cellar stairs where it similarly bounced against the washer. He trotted down after it, loaded and soaped the washer, and started the machine on the longest cycle. The old machine clunked and groaned and the pipes squealed as water pumped into the basin. He scampered back to Fuyuki's room.
How undignified this posture is, he thought, I have only the running time for this first task. The noise of the machine shall mask my sounds. He closed Fuyuki's door. He attached a few items from the kit to his belt. He climbed on the bed and used it as a springboard, with each jump he flew higher, until the force of his two-fisted blows against the ceiling popped loose the acoustical tile. One more bounce and leap and he was through the gap and atop the bearing beams. He crawled off in the direction of Natsumi's room.
And that's how Giroro's day continued: laundry, climb, work in the narrow dark crawlspace, climb down - lather, rinse, repeat. When he finally closed the crawlspace and folded the last of Fuyuki's clothes, with the creases mostly correct, but with not half the care he devoted to Natsumi's wears, he was exhausted. He practically crawled to his tent.
The meat he roasted for dinner tasted good and he basked in the light spring fog that formed at dusk. He polished his weapons and hosed down the skimmer. His gear bag was much smaller as he packed it away. He left only the regular hoard of ammunition and a small box by his pallet. He waited and exercised his nose with Natsumi's shirt. The scent was slowly fading, but he resolved that he could trade for a freshly-scented one next week. More laundry! He thought as the last rays of the sun dwindled, the shadows lengthened, and the last of his meal was consumed.
From above him a rectangle of light cast upon the canvas of his tent, then there were shadows, and sounds, and then silence and the illumination died abruptly. He settled into his pallet, wrapping himself in the shirt and triggered the box. The video screen lit and in it he could see Natsumi's sleeping form. He fiddled with the controls until the starlight scope zoomed to her face and the red-furred, lop-eared rabbit tucked beneath her chin. She was hugging it and smiling.
He watched her until his own eyes sagged and he fell asleep.
Copyright ©2006 by the Chumducky
Exclusively distributed by litforge.com. Please do not distribute without prior written permission of the authors and litforge.com.
