Scout

The spaceship M-004 decided to thaw its sole occupant out of stasis after it had scanned the star system and found the third planet to be inhabitable. When the scout had stretched his limbs and taken a look at the clock, he let out a frustrated grunt. Crap. Seems I have been in stasis for 62 years after I left the edge of civilization, he said to himself. In a desire to impress his coworkers with a really really nice find, he had set the tolerances for the scanners so that he would only be woken for the best of planets. Had he known back then that it would take so long to actually find one, he would have reconsidered that decision. But when he now peered out of the window and onto the approaching planet, he thought it was totally worth it anyway. Never again would his bully of a boss call him a worthless moocher or threaten to transfer him to serve on some boring scow! An oxygen planet of sparkling blue and lush greens lay before him.

Then something struck him as odd. The planet seemed familiar. Where had he seen it before? Degraded photographs and textbook illustrations came to mind. Could it be? The Lost Homeworld? Accounting for continental drift, the layout of the land masses was indeed the same, as he confirmed using the ship's vast digital library.

Excitedly, he fired up the picowave scanners. The isotopic ratios of some elements were a bit off, but between the spectrum of the sun and the spectrum of the green stuff that was undoubtedly good old chlorophyll, he was now sure that he had struck gold. Then the scans revealed other amazing facts: There were cities, but mostly rural settlements. Even millions of people. But not billions, and no megacities or energy emissions pointing to high tech. It seemed the descendants of those that stayed behind at the Exodus had degenerated. Maybe a war had bombed them back to the stone age, and they were just now recovering? That might explain those isotopes.

When the M-004 had passed the moon and swung into orbit, the scout went to the hangar and unmoored a shuttle. Soon afterwards he was on his way down to the surface, listening to the molybdenum oxide catalyzed reaction raging under the cowling of the shuttle's sublight thrusters and the atmosphere raging against the cobalt-tungsten alloy of the hull. He decided not to aim for one of the larger settlements and instead elected to go down near a green pasture where only a handful of people were present. No need to have thousands of possibly primitive folks make a huge fuss about the visitor from outer space.

In utter silence, the shuttle slid into a small patch of trees and landed in a hollow in the ground. The nearby people had not noticed his descent. A relaxed bunch, he thought. Some were standing, others lying down in the grass, all were naked.

His heart went on a quite unprofessional thumping spree when he noticed they were all female. But his mind, schooled to keep its cool under all circumstances the teachers at the Academy could think of, remained in control. Even though this was definitely not a situation the teachers had anticipated.

Casually approaching the nearest one, he noticed that her boobs were unnaturally large. A quick glance around revealed that the others, too, were impossibly well endowed. The woman just looked at him, showing no signs of distress. Her curious skin color, lack of horns and slightly off proportions added an exotic flair to her appearance, and he assumed that he must strike her as an obvious foreigner as well. The scout was no coward, but the presence of this gentle beauty required him to muster a little more courage than was usual for first contact scenarios, and his mind was a little fogged.

Hello. I come from the stars. Can you understand me? he blurted out. The woman uttered one long drawn-out syllable that made no sense and just continued looking at him stupidly. So he switched to the contact protocols for language negotiation, to no success. All responses he could elicit were variants of that one syllable, although occasionally his endeavors were met with a snort or a sputtering of saliva. This individual was evidently imbecile. He scowled and walked towards another. While the attempts at verbal communication were about as successful here as before, this one actively tried to communicate non-verbally. Specifically, she offered her body to the scout by mooning him in a rather unambiguous way. As the scout hadn't so much as smooched with anyone since he joined the service, the physical temptation was almost too much to bear. But he considered himself a gentleman of refined tastes, so the idiotic look on her face and the apparent lack of brains provided a balancing turn-off to counter his horny mood. Besides, he thought, I have probably landed in some mental institution or so. It would be awful to take advantage of mentally handicapped women.

Steeling himself, he deliberated upon where he might land next to try the contact procedure again. But just as he reviewed the scan data and noticed that the male population was outnumbered by the females, this became a moot point. His sensors registered movement, and his ears picked up on a rhythmic sound, almost like walking and accompanied by high-pitched sounds similar to bird calls.

When he looked in that direction, he saw a strange, smooth skinned creature approaching one of the women. Shocked, he watched as the thing grabbed her by the tits! But she didn't mind. Aghast and shuddering at this new level of depravity, he could not think properly and it took him a while to get his mind out of the gutter and realize what was going on. There was actually nothing sexual about this scene.

The foreign being was methodically stroking her nipples, catching the outpouring fluid in a bucket. It was harvesting her milk! Slowly, the scowt backed away towards his shuttle while pulling the cowl of his activated invisibility cloak over his head. Another quick review of the scan data confirmed his dread: It were these two-legged creatures that inhabited the cities, and they greatly outnumbered his kind!

Earth did not belong to his people anymore.