My original plan was to stick to a weekly schedule to give me a chance to create a buffer of chapters. However, that plan has actually changed now, since I've completed the remaining chapters - all that's needed at this point is proofreading. And so, I will be uploading two chapters a week instead of one! Updates will be on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Once again, thank you to everybody who reviewed/gave kudos/favourited since the last update. Also, big thanks to the ZAA weekly meeting members as usual.

CHAPTER 2: WHAT WE SAW FROM THE INN

We were trapped for nearly a week. In that time, the honey badger's paranoia grew worse, and I was becoming annoyed and frustrated with her.

At the end of the first full day of our imprisonment, I decided to try and find food. Though the room had collapsed, the structure was stable enough that we could crawl about. I made for the kitchen and found asparagus, a cucumber and a bunch of carrots. I took what I could carry with me and brought it back into our hiding place in the ruined bedroom. On my way, I took note of a door that stood ajar. A staircase descended into darkness. I figured that if we needed to hide, that cellar would do, but for now, I returned to the bedroom and the honey badger, who was peering out of the window slit.

I could hear a number of noises, and the place rocked with a beating thud. Through the slit, I could see the top of a tree touched with gold, and the warm blue of a tranquil evening sky. For a minute or so, I watched the honey badger, and then I moved towards her, crouching and stepping with extreme care amid the broken crockery that littered the floor. I touched the honey badger's leg, and she started so violently that a mass of plaster went sliding down outside and fell with a loud thud. I was afraid that she might cry out and alert the Martians to our presence. For a long time, we remained crouched, still, as the thudding above continued on.

The fallen plaster had opened up a vertical hole in the wall. I raised myself quietly and peered outside. The landscape of Molesey had changed. Several houses that were once across from us were now gone. The cylinder had landed in the middle of the land those houses had once occupied. The lid had already been unscrewed. A single Fighting-Machine stood, without a pilot, over the pit the cylinder had created.

My attention was drawn by something else. A large machine with six legs, underslung tentacles ending in claws, and a great metal basket on its back, was taking things from the cylinder and placing them on level ground – rods, plates, and bars which lined the inside. I could see several appendages beneath the machine's body, carefully holding each thing it took from the cylinder. It reminded me of the way a spider would handle its prey in its forelimbs.

If the Fighting-Machines were built for war, then this Handling-Machine, as I had called it, was meant for construction. But that didn't mean it would just be for that purpose. There was a reason it had the metal basket on its back, but I wouldn't find that reason out for a little while yet. In the meantime, I watched, morbidly fascinated at the Handling-Machine. If you didn't know it was a machine, you'd be taken in by the organic way it moved. The Martian within operated as if it were its brain, and I made a realisation: that while us mammals were bound to our single flesh, the Martians had no such restriction. They could construct any kind of body they wished, and the Martian within would simply act as that machine's brain. And given that the Martians were effectively made of brain, with most other organs not needed, they didn't tire, and they didn't need sleep. What were we in comparison?

I leaned forward slightly to take a closer look. I watched the hood of the Handling-Machine open up, and I could actually see the Martian within. For the first time since the pit back on Horsell Meadow, I saw the Martian for what it was, and this time, I felt no fear. I was quite safe inside the ruins of the inn, where the Martians had no idea that we were here. Looking upon the Martian as it looked down at its handiwork, I realised, and for the first time with a clear mind, just how alien it truly was. There was nothing like it on Earth, not even the closest thing that might be invoked by its appearance – the squid. Their heads, or bodies, or whatever they were, must have been four feet across. At the back of that there was a canal, which I later learned was its ear. It had no nose, and as such no sense of smell, and its beak-like mouth seemed quite small in comparison to its large bulk. I wondered how these creatures ate, not knowing that I would find out very soon. Either side of its mouth were several whip-like tendrils that served as its hands. Below the Handling-Machine, there were several other Martians, stirring feebly, their tentacles whipping weakly. I thought the Handling-Machine felt much more alive than the Martians themselves were.

As the Martian studied its handiwork, something caught its attention, and I noticed that there was a group of mammals trying to flee. A curious hooting, not at all like those from the Fighting-Machines they piloted, echoed through the air.

Aloo, aloo! Aloo, aloo!

The sound obviously came from the Martian itself, having targeted the fleeing mammals. Perhaps this was a signal to the other Martians in the area.

Maybe because of how long it would take for it to switch to the Fighting-Machine, the Martian closed the hood on the Handling-Machine and began a pursuit of the mammals across a nearby field. And this was where I became aware of the other purpose its claws had. It caught the mammals nimbly with them and tossed them into the metal basket on its back, before making its way back to the pit.

I watched on. I wanted to look away, but I found I couldn't. The Martian inside the hood of the machine plucked one of the mammals out from the basket – a young elk – and, holding it still on the ground with one claw, the other claw reached inside the hood, pulling out a large needle attached to a clear hose. For a moment, I had no idea what was about to happen. And then, the needle plunged into the elk's body. The hose started filling with blood. I could see the Martian plunging a needle into its own body to receive the blood from the mammal, and I realised with total revulsion, that this was how the Martians ate: they injected the fresh blood of still-living mammals into their own veins. And that was why they hadn't gone for total extermination of mammalkind: they needed a food supply, and we were it. We would later learn that they had brought what you might call 'rations' with them in their cylinders: bipedal, tall, furless creatures that they had similarly drained of their blood and infused their own veins with. If they were alive when the Martians had fired their cylinders from Mars, then Earth's gravity would have finished them off.

Once it was done, the Handling-Machine returned to its job of pulling materials from the cylinder. A tug came at my arm, and I turned to the honey badger, who wanted the window slit so she could see outside. There was only room for one of us, so I gave it up and let her peer out. When she surrendered it back to me, I saw that the Handling-Machine had assembled a small fleet of diggers to excavate the pit. It was these machines that had caused the rhythmic thudding that shook the inn.

A second Fighting-Machine strode in, and we moved away from the window slit to avoid being seen by it. In hindsight, nobody looking in from outside would have seen us, because it was so dark inside. We didn't know that at the time, though. Every time we thought the Martians were approaching, we would hide ourselves within that darkness.

It had fast become clear that me and the honey badger had totally different, almost entirely incompatible ideas. She did not want to surrender to the Martians, and continued to blame 'the sheep' for their invasion and slaughter of mammals. I, on the other paw, felt that I needed to get out and get back to Zootopia, now more than ever.

The problem was that the honey badger was becoming loud about it. And that endangered the both of us.

On the second day of our imprisonment, the honey badger had seen what I had: the Martians feeding. They had a plentiful supply of mammals to use as food, and they had picked one out of the basket on the Handling-Machine's back, and drained its blood right before her.

"Did you see that?" she said, indicating to the window. "Did you see what they were doing?! This is what those fleeces want!" she said, in a louder voice. The beginning of her tirade was cut short when the sound of a Martian machine's heavy footfalls reached my ears.

"Quiet!" I barked.

"They can't have my blood!" the honey badger continued on, in what I now know was sheer terror at what she had seen. "They won't drain me like some…"

I have a confession to make. I had already had my fill of the deluded ranting of the honey badger, and I lost my temper.

"One more word, and I'll throw you out there!" I growled. The honey badger looked at me as if I had slapped her in the face, and then a small huff came from her and she retreated back to the rear of the room. I took another look outside. Two Fighting-Machines and the Handling-Machine, all now occupied by Martians, stood above the pit. Their hoods were up. I watched as one of the Fighting-Machines plucked a mammal – this time a sheep, ironically enough – from the basket and lifted it high. The sheep bleated in alarm, struggling to get out of his hold as the Martian reached for the needle that would drain it. In hindsight, I might have dragged Honey to the window to see it for herself. But at that time, I couldn't even watch it. The bleating grew louder, and then stopped with the sickening sound of metal puncturing flesh. And once again, the Martians let out a hooting cry.

Aloo, aloo! Aloo, aloo!

I clutched my ears. A futile hope that my senses would just stop working took me over. I did not want to watch this, or hear it, or smell it. I dashed from the room and headed for the kitchen, hoping to hide in the scullery. The honey badger, who had been watching me intently, followed me out, perhaps afraid of being left alone in that room. Unknown to her at the time, she had dropped her dart gun in the bedroom as she left. I later picked it up and stowed it.

That night, as we lurked in the scullery, balanced between our horror and the terrible fascination that peeping on the Martians had, although I felt an urgent need of action, I tried in vain to come up with some plan to escape. Afterwards, during the third day, I was able to consider our situation properly. The honey badger, I found, was incapable of discussion; strange terrors had already made her a creature of violent impulses, and had robbed her of reason or forethought. She kept crying about the sheep conspiracy to drain us of our blood. At any rate, she looked like she might be on the brink of savagery.

My thoughts had become a little less pessimistic. Even though we were trapped here, I considered two possibilities: the Martians would only make this a temporary camp and would move on sooner or later. The other possibility was that, even if they decided to make this a permanent camp, the chances were that they wouldn't guard it all the time, and that might mean that we could find a window for escape.

On the fourth day, I decided to try burrowing my way out. Unfortunately, the tunnel I was digging didn't get far before a collapse happened above, bringing more of one of the walls down. Fearful that it would attract Martian attention, I decided that burrowing my way out would not work.

I had thought, by that point, that any rescue by other mammals was now impossible, but on the fifth night I heard the sound of heavy thudding, like artillery cannons. It was very late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly. The Martians had taken away the diggers excavating the pit, and only a solitary Fighting-Machine and the Handling-Machine remained. The latter was busy with construction at the far edge of the pit.

And then, I heard the guns. Six heavy booms, followed by a lengthy silence, and then another six booms.

And then the guns fell silent, and we were alone again.