Mo'onmoo sat down at the desk and stared at the computer. He was the Fifth Most High of Strategic Intelligence Division. It was his job to come up with a strategy to defeat any threat to the Lanaktallan people and the Unified Civilized Species. For millions of years it was just deciding either what military forces to move where or where to give ground and let the enemy choke on the fat of the UCS.

This enemy though, this one was different.

How do you defeat an enemy that has known defeat but has never been beaten? he asked himself, staring at the computer.

He had spent the last almost most two years in the Outer Rim and the Outer Sphere, visiting neo-sapient, uncivilized, and near-civilized systems. He had learned much about the Terrans, in all their infinite variety as well as their allies.

He had perfected keeping his eyes wide open and just staring with his mouth slightly open and nodding along when someone spoke. True, it made beings think he was mentally defective, but it allowed him to wander around, pick stuff up and look at it, mess with things that if he had showed much intelligence he would have invoked suspicion upon himself.

He snerked slightly remembering when he'd grabbed a datapad from a Terran soldier. It had stickers of flowers on it so he'd jammed the datapad in his mouth and then started running in circles in front of the Terran chewing on the datapad while his datalink carefully downloaded its unsecure contents. The Terran's comrades had all pointed and laughed and actually cheered him on rather than the member of the caste 'buddarbar' as he flailed around like a colt. He had spent the next month 'sneaking' up on the buddarbar and grabbing stuff from him, jamming it in his mouth, and running away. Datapads, food, his hat, paperwork plas-sheets, his boots. He had stolen a pack of 'crayons' from a Terran Marine and would draw on the buddarbar's personal possessions and then stand there looking proud of himself. The buddarbar would gently chide him and shoo him out the Terran's room.

That was when Mo'onmoo had learned of the power of standing outside the Terran's door and crying like a little child.

The big shocker was just how reluctant the Terran had been to leave Mo'onmoo alone when the Terran had been reassigned.

If he was honest with himself, it was the best time he had had in over three hundred years.

It helped that Mo'onmoo was slightly smaller than most Lanaktallan. He also had the marks on his head from a sledding accident a long time ago. Most of the Terrans had been very nice to him, assuming that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Mo'onmoo shook his head thinking about all the times in the last two years that Terrans had attempted to get him to see a doctor and have 'that old TBI looked at' by professionals.

Mo'onmoo stared at his computer on his desk, staring at the blank cursor.

The Terran came bringing something that Mo'onmoo could find no record of. No previous encounter and disarmament of the greatest threat the Terrans possessed.

Kindness.

It was more than that. It was genuine. A human that sat down next to you and offered you part of his ration bar didn't want anything in return. He would not come back years later to demand you give him something. He'd just pop off part of the ration bar and hand it over.

There was some patronizing in it, but it was almost accidental and quite often Mo'onmoo had heard Terrans call out one another for 'acting like a dick' toward other beings.

The kindness and generosity was genuine. A real thing that had immense power that they were almost unaware of. Worse, their superiority in so many fields was almost offhand to them. Like they expected everyone else to be just like them and if a being wasn't they would hold their hand out and ask if the being needed help standing up.

Terrans had taught him to read the Terran language. Patiently, several different beings. Taught him to speak their language as best they could.

Sighing, a habit he'd picked up from the Terrans, Mo'onmoo just put one finger on the tactile pointer pad and moved the pointer around the screen. He caught himself letting his mouth hang open and opening his eyes wide and started laughing.

Warning, may be habit forming, but who cares? Everyone's got bad habits, don't think you're better than everyone else, Mo'onmoo thought to himself. He laughed again.

The Terran kindness spurred everything they did. They defended all of those worlds, brought in the most savage and feral of themselves to fight the Devourers face to face on a dozen worlds, for no other reason then they felt they should. No other reason. They felt obligated for reasons that they tried to claim were 'maintaining relations' or 'upholding treaty expectations and obligations' or 'that much death is horrific' but when it came down to it, they did it, they put themselves in harms way and even died, because they were kind.

Which didn't help him.

He was supposed to figure out a strategy to beat the Terrans. Every other Most High had simply stared at star maps and technological estimations and comparisons and force levels and put together the same strategies that had worked on every other race.

But Mo'onmoo knew that wasn't going to work. None of the other Most Highs had interacted with humans at all.

He had. At one point he'd followed around a Two Star General, a Major General, who was in charge of the legendary First Cavalry Division. At one point he'd stolen the General's hat and trotted around and imitated the General's body language and telling Terran soldiers to do things like "Police Call that bush!" and "Get those flowers dress right dress" and "rake up all those leaves, carry them across the street, and spread them out uniformly around each ground vehicle" and "Report immediately to JAG for your mandatory fun day debriefing" and other nonsensical orders like a child would give. The Terran soldiers had not reacted with anger but had rather found it entirely amusing. At one point a Major had told a Captain "Sir, the General is here to see you" and led Mo'onmoo into the office.

The Terran General had been amused by it and hadn't even bothered trying to get back his hat. Mo'onmoo had it in his satchel at that moment.

That kindness, that ease with the universe, completely was at odds with their ferocity in combat.

But Mo'onmoo knew it was part of it. That one was tied to the other.

He just had to put it into words.

Sighing again he leaned back slightly in the cradle he was relaxing in and stared again at the blinking cursor for the document.

How could he explain to his fellow Most Highs what he had experienced? What he had seen?

He had seen a Terran soldier, not one of the big warborgs, but a barely augmented human sprint out into the street to scoop up a small animal that had wandered onto the road. Cradling it gently before carrying over to some trees and setting it up on a branch. The Terran had dodged traffic to grab it, almost been run over by a tank.

Mo'onmoo knew what that meant. One of his fellow Lanaktallan would have ignored it. He had ignored things like that during his life.

But it also meant that a Terran would, without hesitation or thought, sprint into danger to save those weaker than them. Which meant other species children.

The other Most Highs couldn't figure out why so many uncivilized or neo-sapient species seemed to throw their lots in with the humans within weeks of meeting them, or why the Terrans would devote hundreds of thousands of troops to defend the planet of a species they had just met.

Because it is who they are. He typed.

He stared at it.

That explained everyone. From the ferocity in battle, to the unflinching resolve he'd seen, to their gentleness and kindness.

He underlined that single sentence.

How do you defeat a foe like that? he thought to himself.

He had examined their culture for nearly two months before he had gone forth to find them. During the Great Precursor Incursion two years ago. He found an insane hodgepodge of half-remembered truths, obvious lies, and kernals of truth here and there.

A species culture told you how to defeat them, showed you their weaknesses and their strengths. Their artwork, song, architecture, social and culture forms, all showed their militaristic side.

Mo'onmoo stared at the screen and typed again.

Humans and war are both chaos incarnate.

He underlined it. It didn't help him.

The buzzer on his desk rang as he was fondly reminiscing about the time he'd grabbed a wrench from a Terran mechanic and galloped through the motorpool waving it over his head yelling "WRENCH GO BRRRR!" while everyone laughed and cheered him on.

"Most High Mo'onmoo," he said.

"Harumph. This is Second Most High Ido'otoota," the other Lanaktallan said.

Oh great, Mo'onmoo thought even as he said "How can I help you, Most High?"

"Have you made your report on your opinion of an effective strategy to defeat the Terrans?" the older Lanaktallan asked.

Why yes! I even sent it via carrier pigeon and slow moving underground troll to your office! Have you not yet received that report? he thought to himself.

"I have almost two years worth the observations and reconnaissance to put into an understandable framework," Mo'onmoo said slowly.

"Harumph, how difficult can it be? They're an uncivilized race, less than thirty thousand years out of primitiveness? How hard can it be?" the Second Most High snorted.

Then you do the report, Mo'onmoo thought to himself as he answered. "They are a complicated race, Most High. Their pack bonding ability in and of itself demands investigation and thorough research."

"Harumph, it's primitive primate pack bonding. They see one like them, they trust it, they emulate one another. There, I have educated you upon pack bonding," the Most High said.

"Second Most High Ido'otoota, do primates normally pack bond with their vehicles and weapons?" Mo'onmoo asked.

"Don't be ridiculous, what would be the evolutionary advantage in pack bonding with an inanimate object?" the Most High scoffed.

Mo'onmoo thought about it for a second. "It creates a bond that makes sure that the Terran goes to excessive measures to ensure the weapon or vehicle is in top condition and they can utilize it in such a manner as to generate peak performance."

That brought up a memory of a female Terran pulling off her shirt, standing on top of a tank, slumping slightly and distending out her stomach while saying "Hurr, dis is da ideal tanker body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like" while everyone else laughed and made primate hooting noises at her.

Her buddarbar had thrown a rock at her and yelled at her to 'get her obese gluteal muscles off of the deity cursed tank."

"That seems unlikely," Ido'otoota snorted. "Pack bonding takes a long time to form, and only between those who share common physical characteristics."

Mo'onmoo remembered a fist fight he'd seen over a sock puppet. It had ended with the two Terrans drinking an excessive amount of intoxicants in a bonding ritual that ended in some kind of half naked wrestling match on the ground and then drunkenly falling unconscious so that their friends could then draw genitalia on their faces with ink markers.

"As you say, Most High, but that was not my experience. I saw almost instant pack bonding," he said.

He remembered First Cavalry Division getting new tanks and how one female Terran threw herself onto the front deck and laid upon it, her cheek pressed against it, petting the heavy warsteel armor as if it was a lover's skin, crooning to the tank about how beautiful it was. "We are sisters, you and I, sisters in fire and fury, and I shall name you Dickpuncher McGee" the female Terran had crooned. She had looked up at Mo'onmoo and said "Say hi to DP Mah-gee, Moonmoon!"

Her and her crew had painted "DP MCGEE" on both sides of the barrel and the other Terrans had referred to the tank as DeePee or DeePee Mah-gee.

"Harumph, surely you found something of use in your extended observations of the humans?" the Most High asked.

Yeah, don't be in front of their guns, he thought to himself. How do I explain that the only reason we are in this war is because we attacked them with bioweapons and tried to assassinate their diplomat? If it wasn't for that, they'd be off, to use their phrase, dicking around.

"Mo'onmoo?" the Most High asked.

"My apologies, Most High," Mo'onmoo said. He sighed. "I saw many things while I was investigating the Terrans, much of which I am having trouble putting into context."

"Well, we'll expect your report as quickly as you can prepare it," the Most High said and disconnected the call.

Mo'onmoo felt a sudden rush of irritation at the rudeness. Terrans wished one another a pleasant day or at least informed the other they were going to disconnect.

It hit him.

Right there.

Staring at the comlink on his desk, hearing the disconnected tone, it suddenly struck him.

We're going to lose, he thought. Even if, somehow, we made the Terrans vanish, the UCS is finished.

Mo'onmoo got up and trotted around to the window, looking out at the city. He was only on the fourth floor, despite his high rank, because he used to like to watch the hustle and bustle of the city streets.

In a hundred million years we've accomplished, to use a human phrase, exactly jack and shit, he thought to himself.

He could see the Lanaktallan on the street, moving orderly through the streets on their way to work, the store, to whatever bland entertainment they could afford.

Before, he had been fascinated by the flow but now he saw it differently.

Every being moved listlessly or with a scurrying fear of being reprimanded for tardiness.

The city was plascrete and duralloy, cyrsteel or duraglass windows, black asphalt roads. Here and there electronic billboards showed community messages.

It reminded Mo'onmoo of a thing called a 'movie' he had watched with the others. He had feigned fear and hidden his eyes with his hands several times even as he peeked from between his fingers.

The humans who showed it to him had been yelled at by others for 'scaring Moonmoon' by letting him watch a 'zombie' movie.

They're zombies. They're the walking dead. Mindlessly moving from point to point, doing things they don't understand or care about, he thought to himself. A hundred million years of progress and all we are is a horde of zombies without food.

He stared at the city and it hit him again.

The Terrans aren't going to kill us, he thought, feeling his crests inflate with horror and his tendrils curl.

We're already dead.