“Mornin’ Sam”

“Mornin’ Ralph”

 So began another day for two old friends, they had shared terminal space for twenty years, and were the highest rated skywatchers on Luria. As they studied last night’s tapes, Sam noticed something odd, “Ralph, take a look at this” pointing at the big screen “what am I looking at?” ”Right there at E1A, that’s not just any old rock, I’m reading guesstimates of 5K across, where did that come from?” Ralph’s pupils narrowed, this was the sign there was trouble ahead. “Sam, send this upstairs right away, this is big, bigger than anything I have seen” “On it Ralph” and so it began.

 

 The Lur had been the shepherds of Luria, caring for the lesser and greater beasts that roamed our land, establishing vast spaces, undisturbed, that they may live in peace. As a trading planet, we enjoyed and provided goods and services to the entire system and our allies were many, our enemies few. As the only water planet in the system we were also a tourist destination, with people from the inner and outer planets enjoying our coastlines and nature preserves, Lur was the unspoken leader of the free planets, until they came.

 

 200 cycles ago we were attacked by our nearest neighbor Esram, we had been great trading partners for many K cycles, so we Lurians didn’t understand, but we soon found out. At first the rocks were just glancing blows that bounced off of the atmosphere, then they began targeting our cities. We called for parlay, but there was no hope of diplomacy,so we prepared, we can throw rocks as well as any planet in the system.

 

 As the war progressed against Esram, the number of rocks thrown our way increased but we countered hard and that’s when we noticed a “hole” appear in their atmosphere, our sensors read a leakage at the poles, and at the rate it leaked it seemed Esram would be a dead world within a few 10’s of cycles, so we went on defense and waited.The Esram grew desperate by now, throwing rocks daily but our tech advanced enough we could throw light at the rocks and they would move away from us, dazzling technology for us.

 

 Sam took a deep breathe and began, “ We have five days” the room hushed into silence “We know this is the last gasp of a dying planet, and they want to take us with them, a mutual thing is our best guess” glancing about the room he continued,” this rock is a planet killer, and we can’t stop it, our lights aren’t powerful enough to deflect it away from Luria but we have one small chance.” pupils dilated at this bit of info, “We can deflect it away from our population centers and maybe survive as a species, but our Grand creatures will suffer extinction” “You don’t mean…?!” Someone yelled.

“We can drop it in the New sea, we’lll lose most of our forefathers, but we might yet live. Anyway, we have no choice.”

 

“Mornin’ Sam”

“Mornin’ Ralph”

  So began another day for two old friends, they had shared a nice spot in the Mangroves for sixty cycles, taking the morning meal and chatting. Life was good on the reserve, no Ts to bug you, a few tourists now and again, but mostly Shrubs, Baths and Babes, we were set.

“Sam, you see that light up there?”

“Yeah I do, what the….?

WHOMP!