The Dwokdeer was used to the rain. In fact, it preferred it. Rain kept away insects, hid its smell from predators, and rain clouds blocked out the hot sun. Seeing some Dwokweed, the animal bends its neck down for a bite, gobbling up the sweet, crunchy plant.

The deer’s ears perk up. There is a subtle change in the sound of the rain as it hits the leaves in the trees. The surface tension of the droplets is different. The rain is green. Suddenly, the deer feels very sick. Strange pains fill its body. Cells begin to divide rapidly. Hooves erupt from its skin. A third antler grows from its nose. Its brown fur falls out and is replaced by yellow and white. All this activity uses up its fat stores and it becomes ravenously hungry. It runs around eating all the vegetation in sight, no matter the taste or caloric value. Still in pain, it lets out a wild hiss toward the sky.

A metal cube speeds straight for planet Dopla. The living spacecraft in orbit see it coming, but do not know what to make of it. Just as it seems about to pass by, it rapidly decelerates and enters orbit. A few of the more adventurous individuals speed ahead to meet it. The cube then unfolds into a rectangle of blinking lights from the corners of which four long cables uncoil.

“Hello. This is the Dopla system. May we assist?” the foremost Doplan radios.

The response is immediate. An arc of electrons travels between two of the cables through the Doplan. The voltage is so great that even the perfect insulator of empty space is not enough to protect. He is killed instantly.

Later, across the galaxy, Darryl hangs up the phone. “We’re going to Dopla.”

“Where’s that?” Nathaniel asks.

“You can read all about it on the way there. We need to hurry. The Doplans are being exterminated by some sort of electrified robot,” Darryl responds.

“Like an electrobot,” Haticat comments.

The lizard skitters across the rock over to the sunlit side. It stops. The sun feels good today. All is right with the world. The lizard fills with energy and confidence, ready to take on the day.

Suddenly, it disappears in a flurry of feathers and claws. “I got it!” Nathaniel shouts.

His newest friend, Darryl, runs up behind him. “Oh good, that’s one of the tasty ones.”

The two of them sit down to share a meal while their psychosymbiotic Stuffians gather around them. Nathaniel peels off the meat and hands Darryl the bones as he had done with every kill. They always ate different parts of the animal. This was why their hunting partnership worked so well. Darryl tips his head all the way back and drops the bones into his open throat. He was from a little-known planet on the edge of the galaxy where all creatures had two mouths – one for talking and one for eating. Several years ago, he had driven the girls from his planet and earned three medals. He then did some traveling and eventually met Nathaniel on Ninosa. “I think it is the ratio of potassium salts that makes the bones so good,” he says while his gizzard crunches away.

“I like hunting with you and Mojo,” Nathaniel says.

“I like hunting with you,” Mojo, Darryl’s tiger-like Stuffian, says.

“We make a good team. I eat meat. You eat bones. You are tall enough to reach high shelves. I’m small enough to hide in small crevices,” Nathaniel says.

“We should do other things together,” Darryl suggests.

“Like what?” Nathaniel asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can be mercenaries or start a detective agency,” Darryl suggests.

Not long after starting their business and naming it The Newest Heroes, they are contacted by a Fkoojite named Captain Moke. “I don’t know what’s going on. People keep going missing, sometimes whole towns at once. I was working with a team of detectives until they went missing too.”

“Yikes,” Nathaniel says.

“Just before this happened, there were sightings of a large, lizard-like creature with a crystal head near the town where the first disappearances occurred. We have no such native species,” the Captain continues.

“So, you want us to find out what’s happening and put a stop to it,” Nathaniel states.

“Yes,” Captain Moke replies.

“Good, now let’s talk about payment,” Darryl says.

The Chijug system is surrounded by the Anti-Primate League on all sides. The Footpip colonists are cut off from their homeworld and the other colonies. Nate and his friends arrive just as the APL closes in. Footpips are tall humanoids with green fur and large, black lips. They often carry laser pistols and swords. They are fearless fighters, but are no match technologically for the Airpuses, slimy, air-breathing octopi from a low-gravity world. Unable to land without being flattened by Chijug’s gravity, the Airpuses build shooting platforms in orbit. They destroy the spaceports first so that the Footpips cannot take off and fight them. Nathaniel’s ship is blasted to dust. Over the next week, they destroy the large cities, then the small cities, and then the villages, dispersing the Footpips into the forests.

Nathaniel had made a serious error. He had arrived prepared to repel an invasion, not to survive an extermination attempt from a race that would never land. Even his military experience was no use when he was this hopelessly outgunned. Still, he keeps running a decentralized radio network among the Footpips to stay informed.