“Ladies and Gentlemen!” The ringmaster was ecstatic. From the uppermost seats of the big top he was barely a speck, but his half-moon smile was as clear as his rhinestone-studded monocle. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, what you are about to see will shock and amaze you so hard, you may need immediate medical attention! You’ve seen men riding unicycles. You’ve seen bears riding unicycles. You may even have seen men riding bears. But have you ever seen a MAN RIDING A BEAR RIDING A UNICYCLE?” The grinning man backed deferentially out of the spotlight as he bellowed his last words into his megaphone, “I GIVE YOU CRUMBLES: BEAR EXTRAORDINAIRE!”
Somewhere in the darkness an organ began to ruin a popular children’s song as only a circus organ can, and the spotlight swung dizzily to focus on the evening’s entertainment. There, in the center, was a man holding a blue-striped pole horizontally across his chest. What made this man special was that he was sitting atop a rather large brown bear, a bear that was in turn balancing on a comically small unicycle. The duo completed three precarious circuits while the crowd gasped at appropriate intervals.
      At last, when interest in the trick began to flag, the gymnast leapt backwards and landed confidently a few feet behind his unconventional vehicle. The bear, miraculously, was completely undisturbed by the trick, and continued in exactly the same path as it had before. The erstwhile rider stood in a cocky pose, his balance rod planted firmly in the ground beside him. He remained in this pose for almost a minute, during which time it became exceedingly clear that the bear was not going to come back.
      The spotlight operator made a split-second decision to continue following the bear, leaving the unhappy performer stranded in darkness. The crowd giggled. Perhaps, the operator thought, we can pass this off as part of the show. His hopes were shattered, however, when the bear swerved from his practiced course and headed straight for the ringmaster. Parts of the audience were genuinely amused. The operator made a last ditch attempt to keep the chaos out of the spotlight, but the ringmaster’s yelp of panic threw the entire ensemble into disarray.
The stands were shaking with laughter, now. The calliope came to an ungraceful stop as the player ran to get help, but no one had been listening to begin with. The bear closed the distance between itself and the ringmaster and performed an elegant forward somersault over the unicycle’s handlebars. The ringmaster’s back snapped inelegantly under the bear’s unwieldy girth as it snatched the megaphone from his twitching fingers. Some members of the audience realized what was happening, but none could stop laughing. Voices grew hoarse, grown men bawled with mirth, children broke into fits of coughing. The bear stood perfectly erect on its hind legs, tossing the ringmaster into an oncoming crowd of trainers as it did. “SILENCE!” it roared, lifting the megaphone to its mouth. “CEASE YOUR REPUGNANT CACKLING, HUMANS! I AM CRUMBLES THE UNMERCIFUL, AND YOUR TIME HAS COME!” The crowd stopped lauging.
      A sound like cows mooing into an electric fan hummed above the big top. Moments later, the thin fabric of the roof was torn asunder by a dozen massive claws, and six more bears tumbled illogically into the room. These bears were entirely unlike Crumbles. Whereas Crumbles wore nothing besides a tiny red fez hat, these other six wore lime-green vinyl jumpsuits and sat atop matching unicycles. As the bears somersaulted towards the floor, each in turn tugged sharply on the handlebars of its vehicle, stopping its descent only a few feet from certain death. A few of the less perceptive audience members still applauded. Most simply stared.
Captain Crumbicus T Snuggins winced inwardly at his troops’ showmanship. No shred of professionalism in it at all. But there was nothing to be done about it now. He would simply have to be deal with it until he could call for reinforcements.   
      “NONE OF YOU MAY LEAVE THIS BUILDING, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH. ANY OF YOU WHO WISH TO TEST MY SERIOUSNESS WILL FIND ELEVEN FULLY-ARMED SQUADRONS WAITING IN THE DROPSHIPS OUTSIDE. FROM NOW ON, YOU ARE PRISONERS OF THE EMPIRE OF BEARHODIA. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”
With a final warning growl, Crumbicus let the megaphone fall to his side and roared a series of orders at his six men. They were not yet fluent in the language of Bearhodia, but they understood simple commands. “Stay . Look tough. No one leaves,” he said slowly and loudly, hoping that they understood the importance of their mission.
Walking on all fours outside the tent, Crumbicus tried to calm his shaking paws. The dry, dusty earth of the fairground was sublime compared to the cage he had spent the last five months in. If this was the worst of what nature on Earth had to offer, he thought, then it made sense that the previous invasion force had not seen fit to complete their mission. Earth was beautiful, even in the midst of the industrial complexes of the humans, there was variation in color that far surpassed anything he had ever seen. Where the atmosphere of Meton IV cast a greenish pall over every object on its surface, Earth’s blue sky shone benevolently: things here were only green by their own choosing.
      His reverie was interrupted by the bovine descent of the dropship Constitution. “Good to have you back, Captain Crumbles,” rumbled a shaggy black bear inside the cabin.
      “Good to be back, Lieutenant,” replied Crumbles as he loped up the boarding ramp, “You were a long time in coming.”
      “And you are a better bear for it, Captain. We have time.”
      “We did. I doubt humans have the same patience. We’re holding an entire stadium of their people hostage. We must use our influence now, before they do something rash.”
      “How? I have been trying to contact the human leader since your capture. Their communications network does not comply with Imperial protocol. There is no hailing frequency for their commander.”
      “Do they have any sort of communications network at all?”, Crumbles growled incredulously
      “One, but it seems to be used mainly for transmitting images of humans engaged in a variety of sexual activities.”
      “It will have to do. Patch me in.”