At zero hour, astronomers reported a
previously undetected asteroid on a collision course with Earth.  The heads of state, worldwide, made haste for their hidey-holes.  Prayers were addressed to every God.  Undergarments were soiled.
        Just before it would have entered Earth’s atmosphere, the “asteroid” corrected course and stopped—in orbit over the United Nations building in New York City.  Its shadow cast a pall from the Connecticut border down to Asbury Park, New Jersey, from Suffolk County to West Point, causing a total eclipse of the sun.  Temperatures dropped to freezing, hail fell.  The demand for electricity exceeded generating capacity, causing a power outage.  Thousands perished.
  
The acting heads of state, feeling a
vindictive need to “do something,” dispatched craft and weaponry to destroy the intruder: an alien ship of unknown origin.  The aliens immediately disposed of the devices that threatened them.  No harm was done—except for the fall-out, a protracted scenario encompassing several years.  In the end, it would mean certain death for anyone who might spend more than a few minutes a day outdoors for the next sixty-six thousand years.
  
The aliens had parked over the UN
Building because they wanted to know how Earth’s government worked.  They decided early on that it didn’t, and that it would be hopeless, even counterproductive to try and understand it.  They elected instead to conduct simple tests and counts, in accordance with procedures adopted for uncivilized worlds.  With their technology, they were able to accomplish most of this from orbit.
        Nevertheless, there were on board a few conservatives that were not content with data gathered in this manner.  They wanted to examine in person a world leader.  But the world leaders, safely ensconced far beneath the surface in lead-lined bunkers, did not show up well on the aliens’ surveillance monitors.
        The aliens sent a scout ship to the surface.  The pilot and technicians aboard decided that the conditions in and around New York City sucked.  They puttered along the coastline in a north-easterly direction, until they were as far from the protection of the mother ship as they dared to go.
  
Reports of alien ship sightings, even
landings, were not rare.  Over a few days’ time, a cluster of these sightings along the Connecticut/ New York border took shape, including several departures as well.  A notorious imbiber of alcohol, Ferris Pontoon, witnessed such a descent and hastened to where he supposed the craft had landed.  Before he could get there, the ship rose up behind him and took off.  “No more than three feet long,” he declared.
  
Here the aliens set down with the
intent to capture a world leader as quickly as possible.  To their dismay, the aliens discovered that some of Earth’s inhabitants were much larger than they had anticipated.  Worse, none of them amounted to very much as world leaders went.  They were about to give up when they encountered Nero, whose measurements the ship could accommodate.  He sported a great set of whiskers, in addition to a primitive kind of leadership potential, such as the aliens had expected to find.
  
Nero, awakened by the arrival of the
scouting party, went, as any real world leader would do, to investigate.  The ship, about the size of a pet carrier, opened up and tiny, busy interesting beings appeared.  Unaccountably, Nero fell asleep.
        When Nero awoke, he was in restraints on the floor of a tiny warehouse.  A multitude of the tiny, busy interesting beings surrounded him.  Some were forcing a probe up his posterior dorsal orifice.  Nero took exception to the procedure, slipped some of the restraints, bit through the rest, scattered his tormentors, and rushed down the only corridor large enough to accommodate his bulk.  As he went, he encountered more of these tiny, busy interesting beings, and sent them flying, or worse, in his wake.
        Nero hoped to escape his confinement, but the corridor dead-ended in the control room of the alien craft.  Here, with his back to the wall—under the anti-matter accelerator—he took refuge.  This overly large, space-wasting passageway, from the cargo bay to the control room, was for refueling the anti-matter accelerator, should it ever become necessary.
  
With the infrastructure seriously compromised, the delegated underlings on Earth had much too much to do, especially with the alien threat hanging over them and the complaints streaming in.  Amongst the imposing number of

 reports, none receiving any great attention, was a grievance from a Miss Crochett, an octogenarian and retired librarian, living in Ridgefield, Connecticut: the aliens had abducted her cat.
  
In his strategic location, clearly
marked, “Only authorized QKLovn Personnel may approach within 10 FURtodoes,” Nero’s captors dared not molest him.  In quiet moments, Nero would come out and capture one or more of the tiny, busy interesting beings.  Taste-tested, he found them to be in the acceptable range, except for their tough, almost inedible helmets.  Cracking those shiny metallic and clear globes with his sharp white teeth proved rewarding, yielding up a toothsome kernel.
        Then Nero got thirsty and his interest shifted to a nearby drinking fountain, because it smelled like it might have something to do with water.  But not having much experience with such things, Nero broke it.  Liquid poured out and conveniently collected in the basin designed to intercept and store dangerous substances that in bad times might seep from the anti-matter accelerator.
        The aliens would have shut off the water supply to the broken fountain, but the only valve they could conveniently reach also shut off the water supply to the cooling coils of the anti-matter accelerator.  They did not think that shutting off the water supply to the cooling coils would be anything more than a short term solution.
        Eventually, in spite of Nero’s depletions, the water overtopped the containment reservoir and trickled down into the electronic and communications sections, requiring an awful lot of dangerous and extra repair.
  
  The captain of the alien craft wrote in his log:  
  
        “We have made a disastrous mistake.  Though, as previously entered, this planet will forever be uninhabitable due to the radiation fallout, we still continued with the shipboard examination of a leader.  This leader, a large, rough, incredibly quick and strong individual, perambulates on all fours like a lowlife.  Both its front and back extremities are equipped with dozens of blades, and its mouth is fitted with fangs long enough to skewer a body.  It overcame the sedation we employed—enough to lay low the whole planet’s population—broke the restraints and has taken possession of the control room.  Firsthand accounts indicate it can turn about under its skin.  Worse, this disgusting, horrendous, monstrosity eats flesh and bone, not to mention BONdex uniforms, FELcron Ship Slippers, and, even pieces of HADrostraff helmets.”
  
The aliens decided to negotiate, and
opened a communication channel.  It seemed they had to deal with the lowest dregs that Earth could offer.  They had to make concessions: to go away and stay away from Earth altogether.  They were happy to comply.
        The alien negotiators were led to believe that an inferior variety of Earthling could actually lure Nero out of their ship, if they would allow the sole remaining, semi-retired, space shuttle, Discovery, to dock with their ship.
        Following the aliens’ instructions, the Earthlings carefully positioned Discovery and made a tight seal at the alien ship’s cargo hatch.  When both ships were properly attached and the hatches opened, Miss Crochett’s huge weathered face peered nearsightedly into the alien craft.  She croaked one magic word, “Nero,” and the Devil himself swept down the corridor and leapt into her arms.
 
 
                         About The Author
  
        Gordon Graves lives in Seaside, Oregon, with quite a few spiders, and a stray cat that spends her time outdoors, due to her propensity to remodel/ destroy artifacts and an unaccountable lack of interest in spiders.
        Also, being an overbearing egotist, Gordon A. Graves takes unkindly to any help said cat offers with his writing, especially her valiant efforts to get pages being printed out of the printer.
        Gordon’s writing life started at the end of fourth grade.  After nearly four years of getting every English assignment or test back with red marks as to be entirely unintelligible and with a big red “F” at the top, his class was assigned an essay for homework.  He turned in “Now they think I write Chinese,” which came back with one red mark, excepting the “A+”.
        In addition to numerous stories published in Calliope and other small press publications over the years, Gordon has work scheduled to appear in Aoife’s Kiss, NutHouse, Artella, and Sinister Tales.
 
    
                                  Copyright © Gordon Graves