* * * * *
Inspector Kobic of the SID looked at the Little Person with open-mouthed astonishment. Then, he looked down at the items in the palm of his right hand: a suit of white armor; a matching helmet; a firearm of some kind; and what looked like a bicycle without wheels.
"All these are his?" the inspector asked.
"They were issued to him," Greta Gault corrected: "By his commanding officers aboard what he calls an ' Imperial Star Destroyer.' "
Kobic blanched when heard that term.
"Can his race really do that? Destroy stars, I mean."
"Well, he claims this Galactic Empire he serves destroyed a whole planet! So, doing the same thing to a star might not be much more of a stretch."
"And he told you all of this, voluntarily?!"
Greta Gault smiled.
"Well, not right away. Only after I danced for him...to a subliminally hypnotic tune."
"I beg your pardon?"
The biologist-turned-belly dancer explained how she and her former mentor had developed a technique for the accelerated cloning of small vertebrates...including Little People.
"The next stage of our research would've involved keeping them under control through subsonically-induced hypnotic conditioning," she added: "Using what is popularly called 'elevator music' as a carrier frequency! Unfortunately, we under-estimated the ingenuity of the actual Little People. And, their sabotage resulted in our laboratory being blown up."
Before Inspector Kobic could ask her any further questions, he was interrupted by one of the uniformed SID men.
"Inspector? One of the track-and-attack dogs has found something."
Kobic followed the uniformed officer to the indicated area. A grassy spot, near the edge of the Sulac National Forest, that seemed to have a rather pungent odor hanging over it.
"What do you have?"
One of the other officers shone his flashlight on several reddish-colored splotches on the ground.
"Is that blood?" Kobic asked.
The lieutenant in charge of the Tactical Squad nodded. Adding how the T&A dogs were already backtracking whatever had left the powerful scent. Which, in turn, caused Kobic to grin.
"Well, then, what are we waiting for? Give me a flashlight, and let's catch up!"
* * * * *
MEANWHILE, HIGH ABOVE THE PLANET...
"Any luck, yet?" asked Captain Nepo Thigha.
"Still no radio contact," replied the hologram of General Prilosec: "So, I took the liberty of activating the subcutaneous homing chips in their right shoulders. We got positive readings, almost immediately! I now have the advance guard of Legion 1 already on the way to the indicated positon."
"Very good, general. When Commodore Micco awakens, I'll give him the good news. Thigha; over and out."
At that same moment, back at the Spindrift, Ta'enka'erf of Pho'pheah suddenly became rigid of posture. Excusing himself to Betty, he ran outside to find Logunn and the others.
"I just had a premonition in the Force," he began to shout.
"Bing, Bang, and Boom beat you to it," replied Captain Tocneppil (gesturing to the astromechs): "They picked up some kind of scrambled transmission...on an Imp wavelength."
"Storm troopers," said Obmuj: "Got to be!"
"Of that, I have no doubt," declared the Pho'pheahian: "But, as my people like to say; 'forewarned is four-armed.' So, I'll get my wanshen and go do a little scouting. See what kind of numbers we could be looking at!"
Logunn nodded. Not ashamed to acknowledge that, when it came to stealth, the Force-enhanced Matukai could out-class even him. Even so, he felt compelled to add:
"Don't get cocky....and may the Force be with you."
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
THE LLEBPMAC CIRCUS