Yay for decently quick updates. Well, this one's short. And probably confusing. Don't worry… you're supposed to be confused. :P No, seriously. New PoV here. Finally I can kick off the actual plot. Originally I was going to skip this little 'intro/filler' chapter, but I was talked into doing it if only to add suspense and give a bit of insight into some things. I'm not sure how pleased I am with it, and I kind of hate posting such a tiny chapter, but here you go. Hopefully the next chapter will be out quick enough to make up for the tininess or this one. XD Enjoy, and please review!
Chapter Eleven
Len Sarus reclined back against his speeder. He was bored. One could hardly blame him. How long could you stare at a farm through binoculars and not start to find it monotonous? It wasn't like they did anything interesting. I mean, what, was he supposed to expect them to let the thing out and wandering? No one was that stupid – it could run off!
He was a bit irritated, too. Then again, neither could one blame him for that. Four years university, two grad school, three at a prestigious police academy, hired as an Agent right out of that, trained with the best of them – and he gets assigned to what? Alien hunting. How many years did one have to work in collections before they got promoted to higher up positions? Guard, or transport, or processing, even camp detail… anything but collection. He was so sick of alien hunting.
Then again, it's not really a hunt if you didn't have to work for it, was it? No. He wasn't here on a hunch, they weren't randomly tracking the creature – no, that's what Interceptors were for, finding the Invaders, reporting it, delivering it. And luckily, there was an Interceptor on the farm – a long shot that seemed to have proven worth it, even if this one had been tricky to place (or so he'd heard; he hadn't been involved in that). So he wasn't really hunting. He knew the thing was there. It was just a matter of waiting for it to be delivered… and the Interceptor said that would happen tonight.
He wondered exactly what he'd be dealing with this time. He'd questioned the Interceptor, of course. Standard fare; he had to know what to expect. The more he'd learned, the more he'd begun to worry that the Interceptor would pull out of the bargain – this Invader was humanoid, which while most desirable were also the toughest to nab. No extra limbs, no fur, looked almost Terranean in feature. Strange-looking when you got down to it, but entirely sentient, and spoke Galactic Basic. It had been hurt, they'd had to nurse it back to health. It had a name, had a story. It was friendly, it was trusting – it was even a kid, they'd claimed. Part of the Interceptor's job was to make sure that the ones they caught were healthy and fit, and to ensure they didn't feel threatened and thought they were safe so that they'd be easier to manipulate, easier to nab, and, well… doing that for one like this was prime material for guilt to kick in – he'd seen it with the humanoids before many times. Then things got so complicated – they lost more Interceptors that way, trying to protect their aliens when the Agents came for them. Lost more Invaders that way too, when they fought back. It was messy business, and he didn't want to deal with that here.
But he'd been well assured he didn't have anything to worry about. Hadn't he just finished talking to the Interceptor, set up the capture in full? This should be an easy one, really. No, he didn't have anything to worry about. After all, when it came down to it, 'cute kid' didn't count for anything. "She's just some alien slave girl," the Interceptor had said. Well, that was just perfect. 'Some alien slave girl' would work out just fine.
He looked up at the sky – the sun had gone down; now the only light came from the Aurora overhead. Perfect – it was about time now. Len picked up his binoculars again and trained them on the farm. He'd have to be alert and ready, but he wasn't worried – he'd done this before. By morning he'd have this Invader packed off to the nearest camp and be glad to be done with it. After this one, he decided, he'd start bugging the Sergeant for a promotion. He figured he'd earned one by now.