platforms that brought them down into the hangar. As they drove down, Maiju looked around in amazement: the hangar was huge, probably two square kilometers, and capsules were jacked up everywhere. It smelled of fuel, burnt rubber, and insulating fluid. Terrible mix. Maiju wrinkled her nose.


Turnus was already waiting.The girl wondered if all coaches had the quality of always being there before their subordinates.


Only a few meters to the ground. Maiju jumped down, walked over to Turnus, who was standing with crossed arms in front of a row of capsules with his license plate, and gave a short salute. He nodded to her.


Fir came immediately after her. The other three weren't long in coming either.


When everyone was there, Turnus said: "Well, let's go, folks! Off into your space capsules, the course is programmed. You know what it's about: Eliminate the population and level the settlements to the ground! This time we have a relative big planets to conquer, but the inhabitants are weak! "


His soldiers saluted and answered in unison: “Yes, Captain!” Then they jumped into their capsules.


Turnus stopped Maiju, who wanted to do the same, for a moment and reminded her: "This is your first mission now, Maiju. Nevertheless, I expect you to do your best!Failure is not excused! "


"Understood, captain! I'll make an effort!"


"Good. So off with you!"


Maiju hopped into the last capsule in the row, pressed the red button, whereupon the access hatch was closed, and felt the space capsule go up. Through the round window she could see how it kept going


Went up. Then it took up a lock, inside the ball experienced a huge acceleration - and suddenly it was spat out in front, raced over the planet's surface and into space.


Maiju was excited. Your first space patrol! No, it definitely wouldn't fail! She would show Turnus that she was good! And have fun on the side.


However, as exciting as it was at first, she soon got bored of flying through space. So she dozed off, gathered her strength for the task ahead.


Maiju was startled when a loud beep sounded and rubbed his eyes sleepily.She must have fallen asleep because she couldn't remember the last leg of the flight. A red light blinked on the control panel. That said, they had reached their destination and would start approaching at any moment.


She sat up and looked through the peephole. Saw the surface of a huge brown-green star approaching.


One jerk, it had entered the atmosphere, the capsule was once again faster. A uniformly flat landscape disappeared under her, changed in seconds to hilly and then mountainous. The sphere dipped into a V-valley, the ground came closer .. closer ... RUMS!


The flight was over. Maiju opened her eyes, which she had involuntarily closed before the impact, and found that she was sitting in a crater.


She pressed a button and the hatch opened with a distinct hiss. Got out and floated up to the rim of the crater. Around the point where her capsule hit were another five craters, from which the rest of the commandos had just floated up.

Maiju subjected the surrounding area to a close examination. On either side the walls of the valley seemed to protrude into the low sky. The plants that grew here were all somehow ornate and played all shades of green, the rocks that peeked out between the plants were pointed and sharp-edged and red-brown or almost black. The sky was as bright as she had never seen it before, but it still seemed as if it began right above the mountain tops. She activated her scouter, adjusted the combat force meter, and turned around once. The device did not receive a signal. Apparently there was no one around whose combat strength was over three. She zeroed the sensor and suddenly the pane of glass in front of her eye was full of numbers from 0.1-2.9.


Great! Hopefully there are still beings here whose fighting strength is a bit higher, otherwise this will be the blandest mission for a thousand years!


Fir seemed to have just been thinking the same thing, for he snorted contemptuously and shook his head.

Turnus had also made a picture of the planet and was now giving instructions: "We will proceed as always, that is, we will split up into teams of two, each of which will fly in a different direction. Tiang comes with me. The second Loé and Tarkran form the team. So Fir and Maiju remain for the third team! "


Fir moaned softly. Maiju rolled her eyes. Shit again, Fir of all people! She couldn't stand him and he despised her. But still better than the quick-tempered Loé.


The teams swung themselves into the air and hissed over the walls of the valley up into the sky, where they had a clear path. Each team took a different direction. With the scouter switched on, they flew over the area in search of intelligent life.


They found nothing for a long time. All they saw was flat forest, and every now and then a wooded mountain range rose from the plain. Nothing moving, although their scouters showed enough tiny energies.

Suddenly a row of numbers appeared on Maijus Scouter, which ran up to nine and had just as suddenly disappeared again. Maiju stopped in the air as suddenly as if she had flown into an invisible wall.


"What is?" Fir asked her bored.


"There was something just now, fighting strength at nine, but now I can't find it anymore!"


"It will be nothing! Come on!"


"No, I want to know exactly now! I'm going down!" She floated down and came up very easily. Nothing to see.


Fir landed next to her: "Well?"


Maiju did not answer him. She had just discovered a hole in the ground and was examining it more closely. It was clearly going deep. On the spur of the moment she crawled inside.


"What are you doing here?" it came from Fir. She motioned for him to be quiet, then followed the corridor that spiraled downward. Very carefully. After all, she didn't want to startle whoever had dug this passage.Absolute darkness. Maiju decided to stop hearing, feeling, and smelling.


Apparently Fir had followed her, and something was pawing behind her. The air was warm but not stuffy. The floor is hard, smooth, easy to walk on. Their hands and paws made no sound.


It grew lighter in front of her. Maiju drove around the last corner and drove back immediately. Her scouter beeped. She cursed in her mind and turned it off. Peeked around the corner again.


The corridor ended here. Beyond it was a spacious cave in which a bunch of little figures sat or darted around. Now she knew why they hadn't found intelligent beings in so long.


Someone bumped into her from behind. Maiju turned around and gestured for Fir to be quiet and carefully look around the corner. Obviously astonished, he complied with the request. She saw how his face brightened when he saw the long-sought inhabitants of this planet. He pulled his head back in. "Brilliant, Maiju!You've got a lot going for it! So how do we do this most dramatically now? "


"Just shoot, then we'll come whizzing out of here and take them off in one fell swoop!"


"And how?"


"We'll throw them all together and then grill them!"


He grinned devilishly "That's good! Come on!"


"Still waiting!" she held him back "We have to let one of them live so he can show us the other loopholes!"


“Hey, you've got something in your brain! Well, let's do it!” In his left hand, a glowing ball emerged, which quickly grew larger. When she had reached head format, he thrust his hand forward and fired at the group that was sitting directly in front of the exit. A cry of horror from many throats followed.


One by one, Fir and Maiju shot out of the corridor, attacked the small, bird-like creatures that were trying to escape in panic, beat them and threw them into a heap in the middle of the cave.

Maiju followed someone who had reached an emergency exit higher up and was preparing to escape, grabbed him by the legs, pulled him back despite violent protests and hurled him against the opposite wall, from which he fell to the ground and lay there. Maiju jumped to the ground and walked towards him.


The little bird was about to stand up when Maiju's paw pressed its head to the ground. She released it, it wanted to push itself up again, she pushed it down.


The game repeated a few times until it finally stopped. Then Maiju crouched down next to him on the floor, brought her face very close to his, asked: "Is your life worth something to you?" She looked into eyes wide in horror. The little beak moved, but no sound came out.


"I didn't understand you, I'm sorry!" mocked Maiju "Or did you not understand me? I asked you if your life is worth something to you! Do you want me to do the same to you as my buddy does to your fellow?"She called over to Fir," Fir! Short-term change! Show the little one what we do with stubborn beings who don't answer! "


“All right!” He grabbed one of the little bird creatures, threw it into the air, perforated it with several beams of energy. A thud as the lifeless body hit the earth. A desperate peep from the prisoner.


"Well what is it? Shall we repeat that with you?"


Desperate shaking of the head.


"Or ..." Maiju made it exciting, enjoying the expression of fear on the prisoner's face, "will you show us where more of you live?"


"No never!" it beeped shrilly "You just want to kill her!"


"That's right! And if you don't play along, we'll kill you too and take someone else. We have plenty of choice!"


"I would rather die than become a traitor!" came the surprisingly courageous answer.


Maiju grimaced "Well, that's your bad luck!Because don't think I'll kill you so quickly! All