As a reward for his efforts in enabling the successful rise of the reptilians, Larsst received a promotion to Commander of the complete reptilian Terrain Force; as promised by his senior. Reports from the troops out on the ground confirmed that just a small human resistance remained intact. The virus served the intended purpose well. Larsst ordered a unique custom uniform to be tailored to his specifications.
Many humans survived – in exchange though they had to pledge allegiance to the superior reptilian race and served as slaves. So Larsst now had his own slave tailor, who's first task was to make Larsst's uniform. The uniform reminded the slave more of a party gown, but he did not dare speak. Part of the uniform was a silver plate which covered the shoulders and shaped to a strange form to make sure it fit on Larsst's horned shoulders. From beneath the silver plate ran a series of long and wide golden ribbons on the back – designed to account for the rough reptilian spiked spine and tail.
And at the front a silver breast plate with red and gold wreaths engraved into it. A nod of the head from Larsst was enough for the slave to retreat into his wooden pen in one corner of the room. With the slave out of sight, Larsst stroked the uniform breast plate, held his head high without looking at any particular object; and produced a series of rough purrs from the bottom of his throat during this moment of grandeur.
The virus had not reached and damaged many isolated human World Administration barracks, so Larsst could move into the quarters of his choice. The parade ground in front of his headquarters now filled row upon row of reptilian soldiers, eager to march off to war against any remaining human resistance. A knock at the three metre high double oak doors, disrupted this state of personal lust for Larsst.
Turning on his scaled taloned heels he shouted “Enter, be quick!”
The doors burst open and a pair of clumsy reptilian Masters entered the room while tripping over their own thick heavy feet.
With hate in his voice, Larsst questioned “Who are you? What do you have to report?”
The Masters looked at each other. With an elbow one of the Masters shoved the other to prompt it to speak. With a gulp he said “The humanss! At the human children education dome. They recceived help from outsside.”
Saliva seeped out and dangled from the sides of Larsst's shiny scaled mouth as he asked “Who had help? Who helped? And what did you do?”
The last question from Larsst caused the reptilian Master, who spoke before, to take a step backwards; prompting his colleague to answer instead.
The other Master explained “They came from nowhere, humanss and otherss – moving treess!” He took a quick breath and continued “We had the children in a trap and waited for further orderss. But an attack came from behind uss."
Larsst walked towards the Masters, in a vertical stance ensuring that his unique uniform was most optical; as his movements forced the golden ribbons to wave in the air.
After he was one metre in front of the Masters, Larsst stood still and asked “Interessting. Tell me, how did it happen that the pair of you ssurvived? Did the other troopss fight until the end?”
The same reptilian Master said “Yess, they fought brave and proud. They threw many bombss at uss. We could not breath at firsst, but the liquid in the bombss did not block our nosstrilss. We returned by the fasstesst posssible route to call for reinforccementss.”
Silence followed as Larsst walked behind his desk, which broke as he smashed of his taloned fists on the desk top.
He shouted “Reporting iss one thing, and bravery iss another! And bravery iss ssomething neither of you have! Dissgracceful! You have faccial sscars from battless long forgotten – oncce heroess, but what are you now? You are both reducced to the rank of Ssoldier. Now ssend me another Masster sso that I can coordinate the next plan of action.”
After the pair of demoted reptilian soldiers left the room, Larsst took the chance to ponder things over for himself. 'How did the humans sabotage a reptilian deployment executed upon my intuition and plan in the first place?' he thought. He had been confident that if a human resistance group existed somewhere; a rescue of the children at the education centre was imminent. Humans could be so predictable.
He intended to send the eager troops stood outside to hunt the humans. But he had a sinister hunch that an agenda was in the pipeline, which was behind the rescue of the children. He needed to find out what the human resistance agenda was even if he had to step out of his official reptilian realm role to do so.