I wasn’t so sure how to respond to that. I mean it had just locked me up, what I now assumed had been all night, leaving me to dread my fate. Now it had made it easy for me to escape and greeted me like we were buddies! I decided to welcome myself outside before taking any additional action. Better safe than sorry. At least this way if the Human decided to chase me I’d have a better chance of escape.

I gave the Human a most disapproving glare but it seemed oblivious.

“You hungry?”

Aha, so it was going to play dumb it seemed. I decided I’d ignore it, bet that would teach it. It finally seemed to pick up on what I was doing and frowned.

“What’s wrong, Kitty?”

“First off, my name is Smiley not Kitty—”

“Smiley? That’s a weird name. I’ve barely seen you smile the whole time.”

I grabbed the hood of my uniform and flung it back, leaned my head forward and pointed at the smiley faces on the backs of my ears. “This is why!”

“Well I suppose that makes sense. Why are you so ill-tempered all of a sudden?”

“You locked me in your torture chamber all night! Why do you think?”

“That’s not a torture chamber.”

“Oh really? Then what exactly is it, huh?”

“My garage.” The Human stated as it walked inside said chamber. “Where I keep my car and such.”

My ear twitched. A garage? Was that like a hangar? Why hadn’t it told me that before? Some people!

“I know it’s not exactly the best place to keep a house guest, but you messed up my house, Kitty.”

“Smiley.”

“Smiley.” It repeated back. “So of course I’m going to be a bit upset.”

“You kicked me out.”

“I’m sorry, okay? You can leave if you want. I was trying to protect you.”

I contemplated it right then, leaving. There had to be more alien friendly Earthians in the area, on the flipside of that, there were probably a lot of less alien friendly Earthians as well. Meh, what was a simple misunderstanding amongst friends? Any decent Qwuedeviv would give the guy a second chance.

The conversation in between there and the house wasn’t all that exciting or interesting so I’ll cut through most of that. We had gone inside and I was now sitting at a table. It was kind of too tall for me—obviously no one had taken my kind into consideration when they had made it. My feet couldn’t quite touch the floor and the chair itself was kind of uncomfy. Made out of wood. Who makes a chair out of wood? That’s just poor planning.

“Mmm.” The Human exclaimed as it flipped the contents of a food can it had placed in a pan on the stove. “This smells great. You a fan of canned beans and sausage, Kitty?”

“I’m not sure I know what it is, Human, but I’m sure it will quell the savage beast.”

The Human chuckled after that for some reason. Not sure what it found funny about the savage beast. I mean I very easily could have eaten it or something for all it knew. Well, in reality I couldn’t. I was far too small and it was far too big. Now Cloudy might have been able to do something like that, but Cloudy wasn’t here.

“So tell me Kitty, er, Smiley, how’d you get here? No one seems to have noticed anything.”

“Of course they haven’t. I arrived in my drop pod. It self-destructed after I got here. Your Human news reporters probably suspect it was some delinquent Earthian kittens.

“You mean kids.” It stirred the contents of the pan again. “But if your ride home exploded, how will you get back?”

You know the thought hadn’t really occurred to me until then. How was I supposed to get home? The drop pod was only meant for, well, dropping, not bringing me back. I had no method of communicating with Headquarters currently and I was stranded from the rest of my crew. How was I supposed to single handedly rule the planet and get back home to brag about it?

That sort of changed a lot of things and I found myself spiraling into a dark pit of despair. What was I doing? Sitting here in the enemy’s house, waiting for breakfast. Krillfish! Was I a prisoner of war? What was I going to do? Hopeless…helpless…

“I…I have no way home.”

“No?” The Human was done cooking the food by now and had begun sliding off hunks of the stuff onto two plates.

“I have no communication with Headquarters. My drop pod was never meant to return home anyway.”

“Oh…that’s no good.” It sat down at the table and picked up a fork. “Can’t you use our satellites or something? Aliens always seem able to utilize those in movies and such.”

“Perhaps my tech unit or mechanic could, but it’s really not my department.”

The Human shoved a forkful of the salty food in its mouth. “You said you were the only one.”

“Only one here currently. There’s a few others stranded somewhere. Probably dead.”

“Oh…” It frowned, “sorry for your loss.”

I sighed and lifted a pawful of the gunk to my mouth and shoved it in. Even through the bitter tang of sorrow it tasted pretty good.

“Well, they’re bound to notice you’re missing eventually, right? Then they’ll come look for you.”

“Not likely. Not with our numbers.” I took several more forkfuls of the stuff. This Human food was tasty! I could get used to it for sure.

The Human thought about that for a few moments and then nodded. “Well you know I’ve kind of always wanted a pet. Kitties are cute and cleaner than dogs…” It turned to look at me. “Kitty, if you’d like, I’d be honored to have you as my cat.”

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have cared. I’d have had no reason to. A Human offering a military officer their home as a pet? Huh! The nerve. But right then I was lonely and desperate. I didn’t want to be stranded on this planet all alone. I didn’t want to become a science experiment for someone. And this Human…it…it actually liked me.

I’m sure my eyes were adorable and shiny because it felt like I was on the verge of tears as I leaned forward on the table towards the Human, mouth wide in a big smile.

“You….you wouuuld?”

It was a touching moment in the history of our two species. I launched myself into its open arms and for a brief moment we hugged. That is classified information by the way. No one is ever to find out that I hugged a Human.

It laughed and cried and petted my head. I purred. Yes, it truly was an amazing time and then there was an awkward moment as it drew to a close. I um, eventually made my way back to my chair and sat down to finish my breakfast.

“My name’s Cedric by the way.”

“Cedric…” I repeated back. “Well my name is officially Qyrvus Mur’rak. My actual name is Qrr’keke’qrr Mur’rak . Before you ask, yes there is a logical explanation for it, but we don’t need to get into that right now.”

“So where does Smiley come in then?”

“Oh, that?” I smiled. “Simple! That’s my earth name! We all have one.”

“Handy. The other would be hard to remember.”

I finished off my breakfast and purred. Maybe being an Earth housepet wouldn’t be so bad. The Qwuedeviv military would be fine without me I was sure. They’d probably decide Earth was too dangerous for our kind and go invade another planet. Sure I’d miss being around my own kind, but…I was sure Earth had plenty to offer a poor, blue-gray Qwuedeviv like myself.

“Please don’t take this wrong, but what are you exactly?”

“A kitty of course!” I purred.

Cedric scratched at its head a bit. “I meant more like…if you had an actual species name or something.”

“I’m a Qwuedeviv.”

“A Qwuh-what?”

“Kweh-deh-viv.” I repeated, slower this time so the Human could follow the sound.

Cedric tried repeating the name to itself a few times. None of the pronunciations were exactly correct, but it was close enough and Cedric seemed proud of itself anyway. That was fine with me; let the simple minded Human feel it had succeeded.

“I guess I’ll need to pick up a few things for you then…” Its voice trailed off as I presume it was making a mental list of the things needed to support a pet properly.

Well good, a responsible pet owner was a good thing to have and I was proud that mine seemed to be taking proper initiative in this endeavor. It happened to glance at the clock on the wall then.

“Where does the time go?” It whined as it sprang from the table, and hit its knee in the process. I watched as it hopped around a bit, yowling in pain. Once it had gathered its composure, it obtained an unmarked black briefcase and tied the laces on its shoes—they had previously been untied you see.

“Sorry Kitty, er, Smiley, or whatever it is you want to be called. Can’t be late for work.”