“Kaleid name, huh?” I contemplated, looking at Shady.

  The cryptid Princess bobbed and shrugged, not saying anything helpful.

  “I don’t think she has one of those,” I guessed, wincing internally and expecting for my house of card-lies to collapse around me dramatically. Maybe 'Starshade' was the right answer, but then again she never claimed it to be a 'Kaleid name' or whatever.

  The Admiral's expression shifted slightly. "Good, that was a trick question, only a weak Omnid would reject their family and create a Kaleid name for themselves. Next question! Tell me this: What is her preferred hunting form?"

  Hunting form? What? I was about to panic when Shady crawled into view on all fours, antlers decorated with an entire drawer's worth of kitchen utensils.

  "HUNT! HUNT! Circle BEEP! This is… hunting!" she announced, then dropped into an exaggerated stalking pose that looked more like an oversized house cat hopping around me than a deadly predator.

  "She... prefers to hunt as herself without armor or weapons on," I said, inspiration striking. "No alternate form. She takes pride in her natural capabilities."

  The Admiral tisked. "She always was stubborn about that. Very well. Final question: What did she name her first claimed territory?"

  My mind raced.

  First claimed territory... She'd mentioned claiming various properties jokingly with me, but the first? Then it hit me—the cardboard fort we'd built together when we were kids! She'd declared it a fun-sized version of some specific, claimed citadel… but cooler because it was our own castle that she actually cared about since we built it ourselves out of random boxes and tape we found in grandfather’s attic. Starshade made a big ceremony of it, waving a sword-shaped stick around and dubbed it…

  "Citadel Bladecross," I said. "She said every great empire starts with a single stronghold."

  A long silence. Even Sillicia seemed to be holding her breath.

  "Hrm," the Admiral pursed her lips. "Yes, she made that claim when she was just a spawnling managing Division…" She cut herself off, realizing she'd just confirmed my answer.

  "As I said," I continued, pressing the advantage, "The Princess trusted me with many secrets."

  The Admiral's projection straightened. "This proves nothing except that you've had contact with her. You could have mentally extracted this information from her."

  “When would I have done this?” I asked. “Also, do you believe that I have enough psychic powers to pull information out of an Omnid Princess trained in defending her mind?”

  The Admiral glared at me, clearly not interested in my rationalizations.

  “The War-Gunner 50k books and legends of the Emperor of Earth do feature you as a powerful psychic," Sillicia commented. “But then again, we’ve yet to find a single human on this planet who can actually read minds or display any kind of Systemfall powers.”

  "EXTRACTED! BEEP! This is a circle extraction!" Shady sang happily, bouncing around with a colander as a hat. "SYSTEMFALL! DING DONG! INFORMATION!"

  "Your 'parrot' has an interesting vocabulary," Sillicia observed.

  "They simply copy what they overhear," I shrugged. "They are very simple, impressionable creatures."

  The Admiral made a dismissive gesture. "Enough games. I will make you a single offer, Emperor. Produce my niece for a brief conversation, just long enough for me to verify her wellbeing with my own eyes, and I will order the search suspended."

  "And if she refuses to leave with you to Omnithornia?"

  "That is of no concern of yours, kobold," the Admiral stated unmoved. "I must see her. In person. I must know she's not under duress or compulsion of any kind."

  I glanced back at Shady, who was now trying to fit inside a large empty box like a cat, making airplane noises. There was no way I could present her to the Admiral in this state. She'd either think I'd brain-damaged her niece or figure out what Shady had done to herself, which might be worse.

  "I need time to convince the Princess to… cut her vacation short," I said.

  "How long?"

  "A week," I said, praying that would be enough time for Shady's brain to reassemble itself. "Perhaps two."

  "Unacceptable. I'll give you three days."

  "You know how stubborn she—"

  "Three days, or I resume my search. Aggressively. Plowing right through your most populated cities." The Admiral leaned forward. "And Emperor? If I discover you've been lying to me, if you've harmed my niece in any way, I will personally ensure your death takes more than ten thousand years."

  "Understood."

  The hologram winked out, leaving Commander Sillicia staring at the drone.

  "Three days," she repeated. "The Admiral is being… remarkably generous. Consider me impressed, Emperor."

  "Yeah, super generous," I muttered.

  "Be aware,” Sillicia added. “Our fleet will remain in orbit. The Seekers will continue passive scanning. The Scrutimancers will not cease their… unravelling of your world. Any attempt to move the Princess off-world via dimensional gates will be... intercepted with extreme prejudice.”

  “Understood.” I said.

  “I would also really appreciate it… if the princess talked to me,” Sillicia added quietly. “Maybe I could personally convince her to…”

  “Sorry, she doesn't want her vacation to be disturbed by anyone. Can you release my drone back to the wild?”

  “Sure.” Sillicia picked up the drone carefully. "I shall return this device to the location where it descended from. Three days, Emperor. Use them wisely to convince the Princess to talk to her aunt."

  The call ended. I ripped off the mask and goggles, gasping for air. My face and shirt were completely soaked through with sweat. I went to the bathroom and rinsed my face then walked back downstairs.

  My tablet buzzed with Dax calling.

  "DUDE," he said the moment I answered. "Fuuuuck."

  "I bought us three days," I said.

  "Three days for what? To teach the princess how to stop making weird beeping noises?"

  "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" Shady agreed from her box. "This is Emperor fort!"

  "Something like that," I said, watching her paw at my direction from the cardboard box like a cat. "Dax, I need you to do something else for me."

  "What now, my Emperor?” he chortled.

  "Monitor the news for any other weaknesses we can exploit."

  “Can do. Anything else?”

  “Uhhh… I dunno, what do the people think about this?”

  "You mean besides the fact that you're already trending on G like crazy? Some Polish intern just live-leaked footage from inside the palace. You're a freaking meme now. 'Emperor of Earth Negotiates with Aliens Using Drone.' People think it's either the greatest hoax or the biggest balls move in human history."

  "Sheeeet,” I rubbed my face.

  "Yeah. Oh, and the Pope just announced he's praying for the Emperor of Earth's wisdom in these trying times."

  "The Pope?"

  "Yeah, apparently you're being discussed at the Vatican. The Orthodox Patriarch in Moscow too. Something about 'humanity's unexpected defender.' China's claiming the Emperor is probably Chinese. America's saying he's obviously American because of his confidence and speaking in English."

  I swallowed.

  "The whole world's going nuts over this! But hey, at least the aliens aren't actively murdering people anymore. The crystal centipedes seems to have relaxed. Still scanning though."

  "Small miracles," I muttered.

  "Ash... What are you going to do in three days? You can't exactly present her if she’s that high.”

  I looked at Shady who stared at me from the box with wide silver eyes. “Emperor… this is fort. Fort!”

  "I have absolutely no idea," I admitted. "But I've got 72 hours to figure it out. Maybe she’ll act a bit more rational by then.”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  I set a timer on my tablet to notify me of when my deadline was up.

  "Well," Dax said, "if you need me to fly more drones around, I'm your guy.”

  “Oh, that drone and tablet,” I said. “Fly them into the Vistula river.”

  “Good idea, if a tad expensive if we have to keep doing this,” Dax sighed. “Can’t leave evidence for aliens to track from their ships in orbit though. Is prolly why that commander released it, to see where it will fly back to. In other news, sis thinks this is a yuuuuge marketing opportunity.”

  "How’s an alien invasion a marketing opportunity?"

  "Dude, have you met humans? Someone's probably already selling 'I Survived the Moon Chunk' t-shirts, I bet."

  He had a point.

  "Aight. Keep monitoring the net," I said. "And Dax? Thanks. For the drone help and for trusting me with this insanity."

  "What are best friends for if not committing light treason against the entire planet?" He joked. "Hrm. We're not actually committing treason, right?"

  "I don't think impersonating a fictional position counts as treason."

  "You literally claimed to be Emperor of Earth to an alien military force."

  "Yeah, but Earth doesn't have an Emperor, so technically I'm impersonating no one."

  "I don’t think that’s how laws work, Ash."

  “I’m the Emperor, I make up the laws!” I joked back. “Also our Vice President just surrendered to big antlered women. I don’t think that anyone will be enforcing laws very hard now.”

  “Uh-huh. Hum. Hang on, the commander and wolf ladies just relocated and parked their centipede across Krakowskie Przedmie?cie and are… heading to a pub now. They just walked past my van!”

  “A pub?”

  “Yeah. Molly Malone's. The few patrons that were there just ran the fuck out.”

  “Hrm,” I pursed my lips.

  “What. That’s a thinking face. What are you thinking?”

  “Just drawing some conclusions,” I scratched my goatee. “A)They’re not afraid of us. B)They know what pubs are. Presumably, if they’re anything like human soldiers in conquered territory, they’re going to drink themselves stupid now.”

  “You think so?”

  “They speak English," I said. “Which is rather odd for aliens. Things aren’t adding up in my head. I need to know more.”

  “I ain't going into that pub dude, what if they smell that I'm the Emperor's right hand man and abduct me?”

  “Do you not have tons of IRL and online friends, Dax?”

  “That I do. I’m not a hermit like some people.”

  “Get them together.” I said.

  "Get them together for what?" Dax asked suspiciously.

  "Information gathering. Spywork.”

  “Spywork? Against wolves who can smell lies?”

  “Yes, they can smell lies, but they also can't tell fiction from reality. And they're about to get drunk in a pub."

  "So?"

  "So we need people who can go in there and overhear things without being directly connected to you or me. Like a game of telephone, but for spy shit." I explained.

  "Ash, that's like the dumbest—"

  "Wait, hear me out. You have lots of engineers and compsci friends, right? And those friends have friends? We need people at least three or four degrees separated from you and me. People who genuinely don't know who we are, so even if their minds get read, the wolves won't find anything useful."

  "Okay..." Dax said slowly. "But who the hell is going to voluntarily walk into a pub full of tall-as-fuck alien wolf soldiers with giant guns?"

  I grinned. "Dax, didn't you tell me that your friend Marek's girlfriend went to some furry convention in Krakow last year?"

  "Yeah, ?apkowisko, but what does—" He stopped. "Oh. Oh no. You're not serious."

  "Think about it. Who better to approach giant anthropomorphic wolves than people who literally dress up as anthropomorphic animals for fun?"

  "CIRCLE WOLF! BEEP!" Shady contributed from her box fort. "This is a wolf circle!"

  "That's nuts. Ash, you’re completely nuts." Dax said. "But then again, that's... actually kind of brilliant. But still nuts."

  "Look, tell your friend to tell his girlfriend to spread the word in her furry group chat or whatever. Alien wolf ladies are drinking at Molly Malone's. For all we know, they might think furries are just another Earth species."

  "You want me to weaponize Polish furries against an alien invasion?" Dax chortled.

  "I want you to facilitate uhhh… cultural exchange," I corrected. "If some of those furries happen to overhear useful information and pass it along through several degrees of separation back to the Emperor’s right hand man, well..."

  "This is the weirdest conversation I've ever had, and that includes the time you tried to explain your distributed computing blockchain idea while high on energy drinks."

  "That was a good idea!"

  "It was three AM and you kept insisting we could 'mine cryptocurrency with potatoes.'"

  "The math checked out!"

  "No, it didn't. But fine, I'll call Marek. His girlfriend Anka is pretty active in that community. I think she was the ?apkowisko convention coordinator. But what exactly are we hoping to learn?"

  "Anything. Everything. How many ships they have, what their technology limitations are, whether they have any weaknesses. Hell, even just learning what they drink or what they hate or like could be useful. It would be nice to know where they’re from since the Princess wouldn’t spill the beans about it."

  "You think drunk aliens will spill military secrets?"

  "I think lonely soldiers far from home always talk too much when they drink. It's universal. Multiversal, perhaps."

  "MULTIVERSAL CIRCLE DOOR!" Shady announced, having somehow gotten her antlers stuck in the box flap hole. "BEEP! Help! Circle help!"

  I walked over and freed her from the cardboard flap. She immediately hugged my leg.

  "Emperor circle best circle," she declared solemnly.

  "Aight mang," Dax said. "I'll make some calls."

  "Should we give them a cover story? Like they heard there were really impressive wolf costumes at the pub and wanted to see?" I pondered.

  "These are furries we're talking about. They won't need a cover story to approach giant wolf people. They'll probably ask for photos," Dax chortled.

  "Even better. Makes them seem harmless." I laughed.

  "They ARE harmless. They're computer nerds who design elaborate animal costumes and smack each other with padded wooden swords larping at Renaissance fairs as Wotchler characters."

  "Exactly. The perfect spies. No one suspects the furries." I said solemnly.

  "'No one suspects the furries' is not a sentence I expected to hear during an alien invasion." Dax laughed.

  "These are unprecedented times, Dax."

  "Right. I'll get on it. Marek owes me a favor anyway from when I helped him move. Anything else, your imperial majesty? Should we, like, start the resistance while we’re at it?"

  “Yes.”

  “You’re… serious?” my Polish friend stated.

  “Very. We don’t know how long these aliens are going to stay on Earth. Maybe forever.”

  “Aren’t you a ray of sunshine.”

  “I try.” I shrugged. "Aight. Listen and note: Basic resistance cell structure. Each cell has three to five people max. They only know their immediate contacts - one person above them, one below. No cross-communication between cells."

  "Uh-huh," Dax said, and I could hear him typing rapidly on his computer while he chatted to me on his phone. "So like a pyramid scheme but for not getting murdered by aliens?"

  "More like a tree structure. If one cell gets compromised by the Scrutimancers, they can only reveal a maximum of six people - their own cell plus their immediate contacts."

  "TREE! CIRCLE TREE!" Shady announced, having acquired a half dead potted plant from somewhere and holding it above her head like Simba. "This is a pyramid!"

  "Sure is," I agreed absently. "Dax, you still there?"

  "Yeah, texting Wojtek about this. He's got connections in the military. Hang on." More rapid typing sounds. "Okay, he says several units are already doing something similar. The Americans apparently activated something similar to Gladio protocols? Whatever that is."

  "Cold War stay-behind networks," I said. "Figures they'd have contingencies since the US government just surrendered to the alien fleet.”

  "You know way too much random shit."

  "I read a lot of Wikipedia when I can't sleep. Anyway, each cell should have a specific function. Intelligence gathering, communication, supplies, whatever. Keep them specialized."

  "Like classes in an RPG?"

  "If that helps you explain it, sure."

  "EMPEROR CLASS BEST CLASS!" Shady declared, having given up on the plant to gnaw on a wooden spoon. "BEEP! Level up! Circle experience points!"

  Dax snorted. "Is she getting worse or better?"

  "Honestly, I can't tell," I admitted. "But yeah, cells. Make sure everyone knows to keep thinking lots of fictional thoughts. Before interacting with the sniffers, play video games about fighting aliens, read sci-fi books, watch movies, but stop reading the book and watching a show on a cliffhanger so that the mind thinks about it naturally. The more cliffhanger fiction the resistance consumes, the harder it'll be for the wolves to separate real intel from pop culture noise."

  "So you're saying the best resistance fighters are nerds?"

  "I'm saying our imagination is literally our best defense right now. Tell the cell leaders to teach their followers to separate their minds into two. To practice thinking really hard about superheroes and magic with the front of their brain whenever they talk to the aliens.”

  "Marek just texted back," Dax said. "Anka's crew is excited about the 'wolf lady meetup.' They're already coordinating costumes. Jesus, they move fast."

  "Perfect. Tell them to be friendly. Wotchler medieval armor is fine, but no fake weapons. Just enthusiastic fans who heard about impressive visitors."

  "Already did. Also, my cousin in Gdańsk says there's a dog-person there who's been trying to interrogate a comic book store employee for three hours. She's convinced Arachnids Man is real and that the Doom League are hiding somewhere in the Under-city New York plotting nefarious deeds."

  "See? Their confusion is our advantage,” I looked at Shady who was bobbing in her box. “Oh! Everyone in each cell should wear masks.”

  “Like balaclavas?”

  “No, like masks of famous… characters.” I said. “From a Halloween shop. And cell members should refer to each other using generic nicknames. But not made up ones. The nicknames should also correlate to famous characters. The more famous, the better. Wicked Witch, Arachnids Man, Garth Voider from Star Glades, Julius Caesar etc. The aliens already think that wizards are real. Let’s really hammer that in. Hide the resistance behind a mountain of human cultural zeitgeist.”

  “Holy shit, dude,” Dax chortled. “That’s devious.”

  "My Emperor is a devious BEEP!" Shady announced. I offered her a hand and she nuzzled into it, eyes squinting into half moons.

  “You’ll need a code name as my second,” I said.

  “Does it have to be a full mask? My face breaks out if I sweat too much.”

  “Nah. Just has to be culturally significant. It could be historic. Like… I dunno, Napoleon?”

  “Pffff. I don’t look like Napoleon. Oh… I know. Zorro! Half mask, hat, moustache, gloves.”

  “There you go. Welcome to the resistance, Zorro.”

  Dax laughed. His name on Telegram changed to Zorro.

  "Aight, spread the word, Zorro. I have to go," I said as Shady began to lick my fingers, probably demanding to be fed. "The Princess needs... management."

  "Good luck, Emperor. Try not to start any more intergalactic incidents."

  I hung up and turned to Shady.

  Three days. I had three days to somehow restore her mind, or at least teach her to fake being a coherent alien princess long enough to fool her aunt.

  The fate of Earth depended on me successfully rehabilitating a brain-scrambled cryptid who currently thought everything was either a circle or a square.

  "Shady," I said. "We need to practice being a royal princess."

  "PRINCESS!" she shouted. "This is a circle BEEP! princess! BEEP BEEP Ash! LET’S ROYALLY BEEP!"

  This was going to be a very long three days.