Battle of Chijug

season one, episode twenty-two

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.

Some days later, people start mysteriously dying. One moment they are fine and the next moment they are flat on the ground. Word goes out on the radio network that Footpip doctors have discovered a virus in the upper atmosphere settling onto the land. Gas masks are handed out. Nathaniel organizes an effort to build and distribute enough gas masks for everyone. Since Stuffians breathe through their skin, their only hope of surviving the virus is to go dormant and not be played with. This means the loss of one third of the Chijug fighting force. Nathaniel places Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill into a box and attaches an animal-proof latch. “If I don’t live through this, make another boy happy,” he says, leaving the box under a tree and walking away.

Then the Doublecrabs land. Made of two crab-like bodies attached at ninety degrees to each other, they carry gas masks, backpacks, and guns. The group with Nathaniel is forced to hide in caves, but the crabs follow. Fighting in tight spaces with swords, the Footpips begin winning, slaughtering the invaders by the thousands. When they finally exit the caves days later, they find the forest dead. The land is uninhabitable. Upon their retreat, the Doublecrabs sprayed everything with herbicide. They search far and wide, but there is nothing to eat. Nathaniel spends the evening of his thirteenth birthday very hungry.

Then more ships land. Out run Hadrosaurs, Ankylosaurs, and Tyrannosaurs armed with laser rifles and smoke grenades. Anyone who gets too close to the smoke soon finds their gas masks flaking apart. “It’s probably a plastic-eating bacterium,” Nathaniel muses. “I know the Hadrosaurs were working on similar bioweapons during the war with the girls. I read the reports.”

Missions are assigned to retrieve bacteria-resistant masks from the dinosaurs’ corpses left over from battle, but there are not enough to go around. Several Footpips die from the Airpus virus as their masks rot right off their faces. Getting close to starvation, they also slice off strips of dinosaur flesh for food. It tastes funny, but is better than nothing.

The group then attempts to flee to another cave system under cover of night, but are ambushed. Nathaniel is hit in the arm by a smoke grenade, giving him a bruise. He escapes alive with most of the Footpips, but then notices his mask starting to flake. He is close to losing hope.

“Come look at this!” one of the Footpips shouts. Nathaniel joins the group at the top of a small hill. A dinosaur spaceship tumbles from the sky. Smoke trails behind it. It lands with an explosion several miles away. Nathaniel covers his ears in anticipation of the sound that arrives seconds later.

“Over there!” another Footpip shouts. Beyond the horizon, another ship comes down. Then another falls even further away.

Half an hour later, a Nino ship lands. The crew asks if they need help. The Footpips inform them of the situation with the virus and the masks and it is decided that they will all be transported offworld. “Wait, I need to pick up my Stuffians first!” Nathaniel shouts.

The next day, Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill are on a Nino transport ship heading for Ninosa. The war is already over. Chijug was among the last places still contested. The primates have won. The Ninos, Humans, and Hammer-Faces are now the three most dominant races in the galaxy. Chijug is regarded as legendary. Those who fought there are treated as heroes and are eligible for special discounts. Nathaniel doesn’t need to be president if he is respected everywhere he goes.