I growled as my captor carried me into the hallway. My deep, rumbling voice had been replaced by something altogether more whiny. Wonderful. Now I not only looked like a whelp, but I also sounded like one.

As I was carried ignominiously along by my inferior, I took advantage of my final moments on Yraht to admire the scenery. The hallway, like many of our buildings, was lined with windows to let in the sunlight. Green, gently rolling farmland was just barely visible beyond the city, and the faint, misty edges of the horizon sloped up into the cloudy sky. The dark blue clouds suggested a storm was coming, and the ominous sight made my heart feel calmer. At least the elements raged with me. 

Ahead of us, the hallway turned sharply and began to slant downwards. It led to our subterranean hangar, which opened out onto the sea below the cliff our city perched on. Our ships would roar out dramatically, their swift passage spreading waves on the water so close beneath. Truly, our species was glorious beyond compare.

We were Yrahtians. Some other aliens who had been to Earth described us as wolf-like humanoids, claiming that we resembled the furry, deadly predators closely. I smothered a grumble, wondering if that were true why I had to be a dog, not a wolf. Yrahtians possessed long, thick manes of fur, slitted, almost serpentine eyes ranging through a variety of colors, and slim legs made for running - humans were the ones with the backwards joints, if you asked us.

We were a race of warriors - barbarians, other species called us, but that was not true. Valor ran through our blood, along with courage and mercy. While we likely could have conquered our neighboring planets, we allowed the species living there to rule them. Most of them, anyway. But we did not stop there. When other species invaded weaker planets in an attempt to destroy and slaughter, we stepped in and stopped them.

The universe is filled with weaklings, and it is the duty of the true warrior to protect them, my father used to say. Sometimes that protection did not always take the form of what the weak desired, but it was for their own good.

I let out a faint sigh as my captor carried me into the hangar. The vast structure opened up all around us, its vaulted ceiling high enough to contain even our largest class of ship. But I sensed that my brother did not have that kind of ship in mind for me. I gazed around, trying to fill my memory so I would not forget this...no, not even on Earth. The stone walls and floor were so thick and sturdy that they had taken decades for my people to build. They had been polished to almost blinding brightness through many years of burnishing.

As I expected, Sanyi and the guards were heading straight for a ship barely big enough for a single Yrahtian. It was basically a smoothly rounded column-like shape, with a bubble for the occupant and controls in the center of the craft. Like all our ships, it was made of stone and glass, and the swirling power core within was just barely visible through the glass of the right side.

The art of space travel was a confusing one, and one that I did not fully understand, but I did know that special gems called Corallions were used to power the cores that allowed our ships to fly. Corallions formed deep, deep below the outer crust of a planet, and, as I understood it, had only recently been found on Earth.

Pathetic curs. I had heard tales of their physical weakness. Why, they were even weaker than a five-week-old Yrahtian! Yet I was going to be trapped on their planet with them for who knew how long.

 

I snarled curses at my brother as the guards shoved me into the cockpit. Sanyi ignored me, leaning over to work the controls and set a destination. In irritation, I tried to sink my fangs into his arm, but the guards held me down. He grunted in satisfaction as he pressed the final button and drew back. "Bring the sedative," he ordered, gesturing to his minions. "And be sure it's prepared for my brother's...new size." He chuckled ominously.

I writhed and squirmed as powerfully as my new body would allow me, but to no avail. The approaching servant bearing a hypodermic easily injected me in the side. And oh, the world began spinning so quickly, and the lights blurred and faded. No matter how hard I tried to grip my mind and keep it with me, I slipped into unconsciousness...