Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory.
― Sun Tzu
"In two days!" A man whispered to the group avoiding the afternoon sun inside the cave.
"We have secured five," the woman sitting beside him confirmed, nodding her head while showing four digits to the others.
"All groups are ready," the man guarding the entrance added, "they know it's each for their own, from now on."
The group of human huddled in the shade of the rocks looked expectant, malnourished and exhausted.
Neil, the man looking outside, had a scruffy look and a European accent adding to the aura of authority the others recognized in him. Or perhaps it was just due to his position at the mouth of the grotto, the scorching sun, outside, bathing him in an almost blinding white light.
In the plains below, bipedal cows lookalike were gnawing at dry bushes. This group of human had been assigned to the cattle supervision by their owners. Despite their pitiful state, they were among the fittest of the population of slaves that had been brought to this planet.
The harvest, as the proud aliens called their invasion of the Blue marble, had occurred few decades ago, or so it seemed to those who had been brutally taken from their homes on Earth.
A lot had died during the trip to this planet with an exotic name no one was able to say properly. They had been taken from all over their known World. Looking as the spaceships had contained thousands, millions of humans, the present survivors doubted the Earth was still inhabited, even considering the rate the population in some continents used to grow at an alarming rate.
Upon arrival on their new home, the humans understood fast enough that they had to keep a low profile and their tongue in check if they wanted to keep living. The aliens had no issue making some examples of what would happen if their new slaves would not listen to them.
At the beginning, those examples had been numerous. Until the abductors understood the language barrier. Their captives could not understand them, thus the many revolt-like attitude they condemned with a variety of punishment.
Those aliens, however, had not been apologetic for their mistake. They just provided some translator gizmos to their new acquisitions and let them know what was expected from them. Some would tend to the cattle, some to the garden. Then, there would be the one assigned to the processing of their food, building of their houses, cleaning of their arses... anything that would be considered menial work to be done by an alien.
On planet Bob, as the captives from Earth had nicknamed it -- in a bout of derision, seeing as there was not much of the luxuriant vegetation that one would have expected from Planet Bob--, there was a visible line between privileged and slaves. The former being the aliens, they lived in modern cities. The housing was made of a variety of buildings, some high, some lower. The main material seemed to be a strengthened cotton fabric, thin sheets of fibres reinforced to make them as strong as steel with a pliable and breathable. This later aspect was quite important on this planet where the sun was burning as hell and the air got stuffy quite fast. Having permeable walls helped remove the stuffiness and the strong smells entrapped in closed space where many proud and self-important aliens used to gather to avoid burning their pale leather skin outside.
