CHAPTER 2: The Acquisition

  Scene 1 – Port of Entry

  -Captain Zarn

  Captain Zarn stepped off the shuttle and immediately reconsidered his life choices.

  Earth smelled like cinnamon-flavored ozone, wet fur, and something that reminded him of burnt sugar wrapped around a slap to the nose. The arrival terminal buzzed with a hundred languages, most of them shouting. Holosigns spun in dizzying loops—WELCOME TO EARTH: HOME OF VARIANCE?, TRY THE FERAL ZONE!, DO NOT FEED THE UNDOCUMENTED SPECIES—while ground vendors pushed carts laden with steaming skewers of what might have been meat, or possibly oversized insect legs.

  Zarn squinted through the terminal’s humidity. Even his ocular filter began to fog. The customs line was divided into eight color-coded lanes: Humans, Near-Humans, Terrestrially Certified Visitors, Diplomatic Corps, Robotic Accompaniment, Non-Sentient Pets, Other, and Really Other. He hesitated in front of the last one until an Earth customs officer in a hazmat-patterned suit waved him forward.

  “Species?” the officer asked, monotone through a mask and five layers of digital translation.

  “Grishav. Of the central Fringes,” Zarn said, puffing out his chest, which twitched in pride-patterns.

  “Purpose of visit?”

  “I seek to acquire a Class-A honey assistance creature,” he said, pulling out the authorization scroll with a little too much flourish.

  The officer blinked. “A what now?”

  “A creature native to this world with demonstrated honey-gathering capabilities and potential monastic docility. I read the brief. I’ve done my research.”

  “Uh-huh,” the officer said, while a smaller customs agent circled Zarn with a wand that beeped angrily near his wrists. “What’s that smell?”

  Zarn blinked his outer lid. “Spiced pollen extract. Ritual-grade. My people wear it to signal calm readiness for trade.”

  The agent grimaced. “It’s an Earth-class 7 allergen. Might cause thirty percent of this terminal to break into hives.”

  “I was told it attracts herbivorous assistants,” Zarn offered, now less confidently.

  “Yeah, well, on Earth it attracts lawsuits.” A credit-chit machine was already extending from the side of the booth. “Import allergen fine: 850 credits. Swipe here.”

  Zarn sighed through his back-gills, then paid. A sharp buzz indicated the transaction was complete, and the barrier gate blinked green.

  He stepped into the terminal proper—one small step for a Grishav, one giant bureaucratic faceplant for interstellar diplomacy. Immediately, a greeter bot rolled up to him with a chirp, extended a holo-brochure, and cheerily announced: “Come See Earth’s Feral Friends!”

  Zarn caught the flicker of motion on the cover. An Earth creature stared back: short legs, thick fur, black eyes that glinted with unknowable menace. Its teeth were bared mid-snarl, mid-lunge, mid-victory.

  Caption: THE HONEY BADGER.

  Tagline: It Doesn’t Care.

  Zarn’s headcrest lifted slightly. He tapped the image.

  “Is this... a honey-assistance specialist?”

  “Earth Classification: Mellivora capensis. Not recommended for direct contact. Solitary, untrainable, prone to tool use, venom resistance, and profound territorial disrespect,” the bot chirped. “Extinct in 12 systems where introduced. Survivors tend to leave.”

  Zarn slowly smiled. “Yes,” he murmured. “This will do nicely.”

  He tucked the pamphlet into his satchel and began moving toward the transport terminal, past vendors advertising neon-bark candy and vacuum-sealed swamp bread, past a trio of schoolchildren screaming with joy at a nearby ferret in a spacesuit. One more scan at the mag-rail gates and he was on his way toward the savanna biome reserves listed in the “Educational Wildlife Sponsor” directory.

  Behind him, two customs officers exchanged a look.

  “Did he say ‘honey assistance creature’?” one asked.

  “Yeah,” the other said. “Just let him go. The badgers always sort it out.”

  Scene 2 – Stoffel, Acquired (or... Maybe Not?)

  -Captain Zarn

  The tram hummed across the red-grassed savanna like a silver beetle gliding over a velvet jungle. Zarn sat stiffly on the edge of his assigned seat, antennae twitching with anticipation, while a large virtual screen played looped footage of Earth's wildlife in dramatic slow motion. A zebra galloped. A meerkat struck a pose. A giraffe sneezed on a drone.

  None of them, Zarn noted with satisfaction, looked remotely qualified to handle honey.

  The tram doors slid open at Willowshade Wildlife Sanctuary, and the scent of sunbaked soil and sanitized artificial shade greeted him with oppressive warmth. The facility’s main visitor center was shaped like a sprawling leaf, its roof venting chilled mist into the dry air. A young human with a badge that read “Tali – Intern & Ambivalent Enthusiast” waved him over.

  “Here to sponsor a critter?” she asked, voice already carrying the resigned tone of someone braced for idiocy.

  Zarn extended his credentials. “Captain Zarn, independent merchant. Here to procure a specimen of Mellivora capensis. Preferably adult, combat-experienced, with a history of monolithic exposure.”

  Tali blinked twice. “You mean... a honey badger?”

  Zarn nodded gravely. “The literature was persuasive.”

  Tali shrugged. “Sure. Follow me.”

  They walked past display habitats and interactive exhibits. Children screamed joyfully near the fox pens, while a pair of elderly tourists watched an owl rotate its head with spiritual reverence. Tali pointed casually toward a smaller, heavily reinforced enclosure near the back.

  “Stoffel’s in there,” she said.

  Zarn approached the enclosure and peered through the thick glass. At first, he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a tuft of black-and-white fur curled under the shade of a rock, motionless, as if carved from smugness. Next to the creature—very deliberately placed—was a small toolkit. Locked. Shiny. Complete.

  “Why,” Zarn asked slowly, “does it possess tools?”

  Tali didn’t even look up from her tablet. “We don’t know how he gets them. We’ve removed them three times. Last week he unscrewed a camera, rewired the feeder, and stole a janitor’s ID tag to open the gate.”

  Zarn tilted his head. “That suggests significant sentience.”

  “Or spite,” Tali replied. “Honestly, we’ve stopped trying to guess.”

  As if on cue, Stoffel shifted. He yawned—wide, toothy, offended by the idea of effort—and slowly got to his feet. His beady eyes scanned the enclosure, the visitors, the fence. Then, with what Zarn could only describe as deliberate ceremony, Stoffel sauntered toward the lock on the gate.

  Zarn watched.

  Stoffel reached the lock. Paused. Looked at them.

  Then—without ever glancing at the toolkit—he flipped open the latch with a claw, pressed a hidden button on the side of the enclosure wall, and strolled out.

  “Alert,” the enclosure chirped softly. “Containment breach. Please locate Stoffel.”

  Zarn gaped as the honey badger waddled calmly toward him, stopped two feet away, and rose onto his hind legs. He reached forward with one clawed paw... and plucked the pen from Zarn’s satchel.

  Tali blinked. “We, uh... didn’t train him to do that.”

  Stoffel clicked the pen twice, then trotted back into the enclosure. Gate still open. He lay back down under his rock, staring at them like he was the observer now.

  Zarn turned slowly to Tali. “I’ll take him.”

  She tapped on her tablet. “You’ll need to sign five disclaimers. Also, a liability waiver. And an NDA. Possibly an apology letter to the next zoo he escapes from.”

  Zarn was already nodding. “Whatever he requires.”

  As they stepped into the admin hut to finalize the paperwork, Zarn’s gaze flicked toward a bright yellow information panel bolted to the wall. It featured a rotating display of fun facts.

  HONEY BADGERS ARE SOLITARY, it read.

  EXCEPT DURING BREEDING.

  Zarn narrowed his eyes.

  The panel rotated again.

  A BONDED PAIR MAY EXHIBIT INCREASED COOPERATION. BEHAVIORAL AMPLIFICATION UNKNOWN.

  A slow smile stretched across his mandibles.

  Back at the enclosure, Stoffel watched him leave.

  Then slowly... deliberately... he relocked the gate from the inside.

  Scene 3 – Missing Again

  -Surveillance Officer Riva (EWDA)

  Somewhere below a concrete floor in the South African sector of the Earth Wildlife Defense Agency, a soft chime rang through Surveillance Pod D.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Riva didn’t move right away. She was halfway through a cold cup of synth-koff and three-quarters of the way through her usual Monday morning regret spiral. The screen in front of her pulsed with a mild orange glow—nothing urgent, but enough to break the rhythm of her indifference.

  She thumbed the alert open. Tracker 442-A offline. Last ping: Willowshade Reserve. Subject: Mellivora capensis (Stoffel).

  Riva sighed. “Not again.”

  Across the pod, Officer Del cracked a peanut shell with the deliberate slowness of someone who refused to take the world seriously.

  “That’s the sixth this quarter,” she muttered.

  “Seventh,” Riva corrected. “You forgot the one that ended up inside the diplomatic transport in Jakarta.”

  Del raised an eyebrow. “Still claimin’ that one was a ‘navigation fluke’?”

  “They always do.” Riva leaned back in her chair, watching the blinking red dot vanish from the map projection. She tapped the table twice and pulled up the badger registry, scrolling through incident notes.

  There were too many.

  —Breached enclosure using a stolen ID badge

  —Opened cooler, stole encrypted food locker

  —Observed bypassing pressure-sensitive floor tiles with a plank

  —Briefly piloted a rover. Unclear how.

  “I swear they’re getting smarter,” she muttered.

  Del popped another peanut. “Or we’re gettin’ dumber.”

  Riva smirked. “Maybe both.”

  She flagged the report under Soft Priority – Investigate, clicked through the required fields, and logged the incident into the central tracking system. Standard protocol. Someone else would follow up. Maybe. Maybe not.

  “You ever wonder what they’re doing?” Del asked suddenly.

  “Who?”

  “The badgers. I mean, six disappearances in four months? They gotta be goin’ somewhere.”

  Riva considered that. “We’ve found one in a recycling bin. One inside a food drone. One rode a tram to a university and raided a cafeteria.”

  “Legend,” Del nodded.

  “But the rest?” Riva exhaled. “Just gone. Off the grid.”

  Del leaned back and tapped his head. “Maybe they’re diggin’ to the moon.”

  Riva stared at him.

  “No seriously,” he said, grinning. “Straight tunnel. Global conquest. Honey dome on the far side.”

  “They’d do it,” she replied, deadpan.

  He laughed. She didn’t.

  Her eyes lingered on the screen a moment longer, watching the log finalize. A tiny tag popped up at the bottom: Last visual: foreign vessel in port. No ID match.

  She tapped it once. The camera footage was grainy, but clear enough—an alien figure with a long neck, twitching mandibles, and a very questionable travel hat stood outside Stoffel’s enclosure. Beside him, the gate was mysteriously open.

  Riva narrowed her eyes.

  The camera glitched. When the feed resumed, the alien and the badger were gone.

  “I’m gonna flag this a little higher,” she muttered.

  Del rolled his eyes. “What, you think someone’s stealing honey badgers now?”

  Riva didn’t answer.

  She tagged the footage and pushed it up to the Cross-Border Wildlife Watch team. Not that they’d do anything quickly—budget cuts and interstellar bureaucracy saw to that—but it felt better than nothing.

  She closed the screen and stood, stretching out her arms.

  “Lunch?” Del asked.

  “Sure,” Riva said. “Just… remind me not to get the honey salad this time.”

  “You got it.”

  As they walked out of the pod, the screen behind them blinked softly. A secondary alert popped into the corner, unreviewed:

  UNREGISTERED QUERY RECEIVED

  Term: “Female Unit, Honey Badger—Location?”

  Origin: Public Info Kiosk – EarthPort District 3

  No one saw it.

  Yet.

  Scene 4 – The Ritual of Mating (Or Something Like That)

  -Captain Zarn

  It took three shuttles, a ground-tram that smelled aggressively of mint jerky, and a ride from a giggling driver who played ancient Terran music at weaponized volume, but Zarn finally found himself standing in a narrow alley between two rusting hoverbike garages.

  The sign above the door read: PETZ 4 YOU in peeling, hand-painted letters. Below that, scrawled in bright yellow spray paint:

  “ASK ABOUT OUR BONDING SPECIALS!”

  This was either exactly what he needed or a mistake of galactic proportions.

  Inside, the shop was dim, the lights pulsing with a faint pink hue as if the bulbs were uncertain of their own purpose. Cages lined the walls—most empty, a few occupied by creatures that seemed more mold than mammal. A large lizard in a fez glared at him from a heat lamp perch.

  From the back of the room emerged a wiry man with skin like leather and hair like he'd lost a fight with static. He wore a nametag that said JEX, written in permanent marker on duct tape.

  “You Zarn?” the man asked, squinting through magnified glasses.

  “I am seeking a bonded mate unit for my honey assistance creature,” Zarn replied without preamble.

  Jex blinked, then grinned. “Well now. You’re the kinda customer who knows exactly what he wants. Come. Come.”

  Zarn followed him past a crate labeled “Possibly Crickets” and another that simply said “Do Not Breathe Near This”. They stopped at a desk made of reclaimed hoverboard fragments. Jex sat, cracked open a half-drunk bottle of something green, and leaned in conspiratorially.

  “Now see,” Jex began, “you can’t just take one. That’s rookie nonsense. You take one badger—sure, maybe you get a season of behavior. But eventually? Boom. They go feral.”

  Zarn nodded solemnly. “Instinct destabilization. Documented.”

  “Exactly,” Jex said, delighted. “They lose it. Stop diggin’, stop listenin’, start chewing through your air filters like it’s enrichment day.”

  “I require harmony. Cooperative behavior,” Zarn said, pulling out his notepad. “Explain the bonding cycle.”

  “Right,” Jex said, leaning back and lighting something that might have been both a cigarette and an air freshener. “Now, badgers? Badgers mate for life. Once. Like some tragic romance thing. They synchronize their glands during lunar honey phases. Share pheromonal bandwidth. Some say their brains link—like psychic Bluetooth.”

  Zarn furiously scribbled. “Go on.”

  “They perform a bonding ritual,” Jex continued, eyes half-lidded with faux wisdom. “Starts with the honey. It always starts with the honey. Two liters minimum, ideally warm, not boiled. They coat themselves in it. Rolls in the grass. Something to do with pollen imprinting.”

  Zarn nodded. “This aligns with emerging data patterns.”

  Jex grinned. “A bonded pair? Twice the pheromone yield. Twice the docility. Saw it once—two of ‘em working in tandem opened a six-digit vault. Just to steal a donut.”

  Zarn froze. “There is recorded footage of this?”

  “No,” Jex said immediately. “But I read it in a paper. Or a napkin. Might’ve been a prophecy.”

  Zarn sat back, humming thoughtfully. “Then I will require a female.”

  Jex pulled a stained napkin from his pocket, scribbled an address in purple ink, and handed it to him. “Try the GreenRiver Nature Preserve. They’ve got one. Beautiful specimen. But they don’t sell. Not anymore.”

  Zarn’s antennae twitched. “Not anymore?”

  “There was... an incident,” Jex said vaguely. “But hey, you didn’t hear that from me.”

  Zarn stood, bowing slightly. “You have my gratitude.”

  “Hold up,” Jex said, grabbing a small vacuum-sealed pouch from a crate marked EMOTIONAL SUPPORT SNACKS. He tossed it to Zarn. “Honey jerky. For the road. Use it wisely.”

  Zarn turned, stepping back out into the alley, the pouch warm in his palm. Above him, the Earth moon glinted with indifferent silence.

  He looked at the napkin. The map was badly drawn, but serviceable. The coordinates lined up with a nocturnal preserve under strict access control.

  That wouldn’t be a problem.

  Not for a captain on a mission.

  Not for one seeking bonded honey production synergy.

  Not when destiny was coated in sticky, pheromonal logic.

  Scene 5 – Nyra, Taken

  -Nyra (limited third-person animal POV)

  Nyra had already sensed the shift in pressure three minutes before the outer perimeter alert failed to sound.

  She lay beneath the artificial brush cover, still as shadow, watching the overhead motion sensor blink in its predictable rhythm. Her ears twitched—not at sound, but at the absence of it. Something in the air had changed. No wind. No chirping from the outer enclosures. No cleaning drone hum.

  Stillness like that didn’t happen naturally.

  She waited. Observed. Calculated.

  From behind the foliage came the telltale whisper of miscalibrated synthetic boots. Heavy, deliberate, not trained for silence. The fence hissed faintly—a short-range field override. Only two people on the staff had that clearance, and both smelled of sanitizer and meat pies.

  This one smelled like pollen and trouble.

  Nyra’s nostrils flared. Her instincts sharpened, synapses firing in microbursts. She moved—not fast, not yet, but precisely. One paw curled beneath her chest. Her tail dropped low. Muscles loaded. Her eyes never blinked.

  The intruder emerged through the foliage with the subtlety of a rusted cage door. Tall. Long-limbed. Not human. Not predator. Not prey. Something else. He moved with intent, holding something in one hand—a black patch flickering with faint violet light. Stun tech. Outdated. Crude.

  In the other hand, he carried a pouch. The scent hit her instantly.

  Honey. Jerky. Warm. Crystallized with pollen.

  She nearly sneezed from the intensity.

  The creature—Zarn, though she didn’t know his name—crouched with theatrical care. “You must be the female unit,” he murmured. “Designated breeding partner. Excellent bone structure.”

  Nyra did not move.

  “I have brought the bonding stimulant,” he added, shaking the pouch.

  She let her ears flick once, subtly. Enough to sell the performance.

  Zarn crept closer. Slower now, cautious. The stun patch hummed in his hand. Nyra knew its arc range. Knew how long it would take him to lunge. Knew she wouldn’t give him the chance.

  She waited until he crossed the invisible line. The moment he shifted his weight to pounce—

  Nyra exploded upward with coiled fury. Not into his chest. Not at his throat. She went through him—ripping the pouch open mid-air with one claw, spraying sticky honey jerky across the enclosure like shrapnel. The scent ignited every predator reflex in the compound.

  She hit the ground rolling, rebounded off the enclosure wall, and made for the emergency egress gate.

  Behind her, Zarn flailed in sticky chaos, the stun patch now attached to the back of his own leg. He yelped as it discharged, sending him sprawling backward into a shrub labeled “Endangered”.

  Nyra was already through the first gate.

  The next door didn’t open automatically—but that didn’t matter. She’d watched the keepers use the bypass panel before. Watched, memorized, mimicked.

  One claw. Two taps. Swipe. Done.

  The door hissed open. She slipped through.

  Down the corridor, the shuttle bay glowed faint blue.

  She sprinted across polished tile, leaving a trail of paw prints that smoked slightly where the jerky clung to her fur. The shuttle’s cargo ramp was open—idiot hadn’t locked it. Inside, the ship reeked of unfamiliar plastic and recycled lavender air.

  She stopped at the edge of the bay and turned.

  Zarn stumbled in moments later, panting, clutching the stun patch like a dead insect. He looked at her.

  She looked back.

  He smiled weakly. “You… are efficient.”

  She sat.

  “Right. Good. Just sit there. I’ll, uh…” He activated the bay doors. “You’ll love space.”

  She didn’t move as the doors sealed. Didn’t flinch as the engines powered up. She watched him hit the launch sequence, his movements sticky, shaken, erratic. The shuttle shuddered into ascent.

  High above the facility, an old security drone banked slowly on its programmed loop, catching the movement on passive visual scan.

  Its sensors registered: Unauthorized launch. Unclassified Terran fauna. High-threat profile.

  It recorded. Filed. Forwarded.

  Somewhere in orbit, a red dot blinked on.

  Nyra closed her eyes and listened to the hum of the engines as gravity faded.

  This wasn’t escape.

  It was opportunity.

  Scene 6 – Footage Forwarded

  -Frax (Rival Smuggler)

  The office wasn’t on any map. It orbited nothing of interest, cloaked in a void pocket, tethered only by encrypted grav locks and a contract buried twelve layers beneath the Honey Commodity Trade Guild’s public charter.

  Frax lounged in the darkness of the communications bay, bare feet kicked up on a crate of embargoed acacia blossom extract. The screen in front of him glowed faintly, casting hexed shadows over his cyber-tattooed arms. A muted playback rolled: grainy footage from an Earth-based drone. Angle wide. Time-stamp: twenty-three hours ago.

  It showed a shuttle lifting off under illegal override. Visible in the frame: one alien with a posture like he thought he was important… and two Earth-origin mammals. Compact. Muscular. Dangerous.

  Honey badgers.

  Frax sipped from a bottle of distilled pollenglass mead and muttered, “Well, krill me sideways.”

  He scrubbed back the footage. Zoomed. The second badger—a female—turned, just before the shuttle door closed. For half a second, her eyes locked with the drone camera.

  “I don't like that,” he said aloud.

  The office lights buzzed as he leaned forward and keyed open a secure transmission line. A hexagonal interface unfolded from the wall, organic and flickering—conglomerate-issue, and expensive enough to warrant permanent deniability.

  ::CHANNEL OPENED::

  Destination: Honey Conglomerate Central – Shadow Division

  Tag: [Market Interference – Asset Tracking – Unlicensed Competitor]

  Frax attached the file, added a title—"Zarn. Breeding Pair. Unregistered Lift."—and typed a short note.

  "He got a pair. No permits. No chain-of-custody. They’re both mobile and they’re not muzzled.

  This idiot’s gonna start a black market boom or an extinction-level PR disaster. Either way, you’re welcome.

  Suggest immediate trace and intercept. Or don’t. I’ll enjoy the show either way."

  —Frax

  He hit send.

  The screen pulsed once. Then twice. A moment passed.

  The response came faster than usual.

  A single line of text:

  “Tag him. Follow the cargo.”

  Frax leaned back in his chair with a wolfish grin.

  “Things are about to get real sticky.”

  Behind him, the footage looped once more—this time, zoomed in on the badger holding a pen in its paw, cocking its head like it was writing a treaty or planning a jailbreak.

  Frax didn’t know what that thing was planning.

  But he was absolutely sure he wanted front-row seats.