evardsson.com: stuff that w0rks

prompt: Write about a school trip that takes a turn for the unexpected.

available at Reedsy

The small craft set down in a field, silent as an owl. Three young women filed out into the moonless night, turning on night-vision goggles. One of them lugged a device on her back and twelve drones flew behind them.

“Are you sure about this?” Astrid asked. In the NVGs everything looked green, including her friends. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“It’ll be fine,” Dani said. “We’re grad students on break, we’re expected to have some fun.”

“This is a school trip,” Gwen said.

Astrid grabbed Gwen’s arm and stopped. “How do you figure that?”

“We’re exoanthropology students, and we’re meant to be studying the goats’ culture. How they handle the unexpected is part of that.” Gwen freed herself from Astrid’s grasp and urged the other two to follow. “Let’s go.”

“I hope we don’t run across any of the caprids while we’re here.” Astrid emphasized the proper name for their body type — calling them goats was like calling hominids monkeys — but she was still unsure about the enterprise.

Gwen laughed. “That’s why we only come down on moonless nights. Their night vision is worse than ours, and we can only see with NVGs.”

“How do you think we get all the spy cameras down here?” Dani asked. “I was with the team that planted the cameras by the well. We were almost spotted by the caprids but were far enough away that they could only hear us running away.”

“Okay, that’s legitimate, though. This is…I don’t know.”

Dani put a hand on Astrid’s shoulder. “It’s no different than what the Correlanians did to us. Lights in the sky, holograms of the so-called ‘greys,’ the original Nazca lines—”

Astrid interrupted. “Those were made by first the Paracas, and later the Nazca cultures…humans.”

Gwen said, “The ones that are there now, yes. The original lines were smaller, made by the Correlanians to see how the indigenous humans would react. They reacted by filling them in and making even bigger ones. Didn’t you study the Correlanian texts in exo-anthro 201?”

“No, we studied the Harveran texts about their studies on ZQ497-32.1.”

“Shit, isn’t that the one where they messed up and the xenos started worshipping them and got into a huge religious war and wiped themselves out?” Dani asked.

“Yeah,” Astrid said, “so, I’m sure you can understand my concern.”

Gwen stopped and pointed at the flat plateau in front of them. “There’s our canvas, let’s go to work.” She unstrapped the vibra-trencher from her back. “Dani, fire up the drones.”

The drones lit up, flying in odd formations, but one stayed directly in front of the vibra-trencher, showing where to dig in order to make the design Gwen had come up with. “Let’s make some art!”

A stylized drawing of a caprid, three-hundred meters tall, was dug from the topsoil; the vibra-trencher throwing the dirt clear to each side of the even, forty-centimeter-wide, fifteen-centimeter-deep trench. The design was drawn out in one, continuous line, as fast as Gwen could run.

The caprid drawing complete, a circle was drawn around it from the same line, ending with letters that left Astrid confused and Dani laughing.

“Um, why did you put that?” Astrid asked.

“Because we weren’t here,” Dani said, helping Gwen strap the vibra-trencher on her back. “Start drone program three, Astrid.”

Astrid nodded, and keyed in the command for the drones on the remote that Dani had previously held. They extinguished their lights and three of them overflew the lines, close to the ground, roiling up dust.

The other nine followed the women on their return trek to the ship, blowing away all footprints as they did. The three that had cleared the footprints from the lines flew back to the ship and were waiting when the others arrived.

Once back aboard, Dani said, “I hate this part.”

The ship lifted off the ground and began lurching side to side, turning and tilting, blowing the ground into something that might have been caused by nothing more than the wind…erasing the traces of their landing.

Astrid looked at her in the light of the ship. “You almost look as green as you did in the NVGs.”

“Shut up,” she said.

After a moment, the ship settled and lifted back to orbit where they docked with the research station. Most of the other student shuttles were still gone, so the women decided to hit the bar and get plastered. Some time during the evening, the bar filled with their fellow grad students, along with a group from their rival university.

—

Astrid felt as bad as Dani had looked the previous night. A massive hangover was not the best way to sit through a lecture.

Dr. Arkan stepped into the lecture hall and let the door slam behind him. He was not in a good mood.

“Oh, shit,” Dani whispered.

Dr. Arkan sat as his desk, rather than standing behind his podium. He sipped his coffee loudly while he waited for the room to quiet.

“Oh, double-shit,” Gwen whispered back.

“How many of you,” he asked, “did your undergraduate here? Not, here, here, but with Terra Galactic University?”

About half the hands in the room were raised. “How many of you studied the Harveran texts in EO 201?”

Astrid’s hand went up, along with four others, joining the raised hand of the other TGU students.

Dr. Arkan heaved a heavy sigh and took another loud sip of his coffee. “You can put your hands down now. Everyone who raised their hand will understand why…I…am…PISSED!”

The display screen behind him showed the women’s artwork; a stylized caprid surrounded by a circle, with the conjoined U-T logo for the University of Terra at the bottom. A picture-in-picture popped up in the corner of the display, showing a conversation happening at the well. Another popped up in the opposite corner showing a group of caprids heading toward the bluff.

“For those of you who can’t follow the dialect of this group when they talk fast like this, the conversation is about strange lights over the bluff. There are questions of whether it was gods or fires of their enemies or some strange weather.”

He slammed his palm down on the table. “The FIRST DAY that University of Terra students are allowed on this site, and they do this. Those assholes have CONTAMINATED our study! No trace means NO TRACE!”

Astrid took a breath to speak, but Dani punched her in the leg to shut her up.

“We don’t know which of those Terrors did this, but when we find out, they…will…feel…my…wrath.”

Several of the class fought to hold in giggles at hearing the professor refer to the UT students as Terrors, the bastardization of their mascot: Terriers. UT did the same with the TGU mascot, calling the Pilots the Pyros.

“Those of you who studied the Correlanian or Vistuvan texts in EO 201 might wonder what the big deal is. Yes, we hope that this will go at least as well as it did for the Correlanians. We fear what happened with the Harverans.”

Dr. Arkan sipped at his coffee again. “No lecture today. I’ll be spending the next few hours welcoming the Terrors to our study. In the meantime, I want a ten-page essay on what impact this may have on the caprids at site 14-G, and the surrounding locations, with a compare and contrast of the Correlanian and Harveran results.”

The class sat stunned, most of all Astrid who felt guilt gnawing at her bones.

Dr. Arkan set his coffee down and turned off the corner pictures. “One thing, though…whoever did this has studied the artwork from 14-G and done it true to style. Part of me wants to say, ‘Well done,’ but I’m still pissed.

“Now get out of here!”

Everyone rose and gathered their tablets, but Dr. Arkan raised a hand. “Gwen, Dani, Astrid…hang on a minute.”

Astrid’s hangover fought with the guilt to make her sicker than she’d ever felt. Gwen’s face was unreadable, but Dani had the kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar look.

Once the room was empty of everyone else, Dr. Arkin looked at the trio. “I know it was you, and I honestly believe that this will turn out at least as fine as the Correlanian experiment, if not better.”

Astrid opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her. “This is not the official policy of TGU, and if anyone asks, I never said this.

“I did my doctoral thesis on what went wrong with ZQ497-32.1 and it is nothing like this. One of researchers decided it was taking the indigenous population too long to invent writing. Without approval, he showed himself to what the Harverans called the ‘prinikal’ which means four-footeds in their language.

“Anyway, he showed himself to them, and using a laser, engraved pictographs of the stories they told as they were telling them! He did this in full view of ten or more prinikal — sources differ on that from ten to over a hundred.

“Regardless, they saw this as proof that he was a god and began to worship him. He was sent away immediately, but the prinikal began preparing for his return. The disagreement was in how they should prepare, and how they should worship.”

Astrid felt a mix of relief and shame and hangover pain. “But you were so mad….”

Dr. Arkan smiled. “It was all a show. I need everyone convinced that I’m convinced some of the new UT students did this. It wouldn’t do to have to boot my best and brightest.”

He pointed to Dani. “You programmed the drones?”

Dani nodded.

“And Gwen ran the trencher.”

“Yes, sir,” Gwen said.

“What was your part, Astrid?”

“I drew the glyph that Dani programmed into the drones and Gwen carved.”

“Including the UT logo at the bottom?”

Astrid shook her head.

Gwen said, “The circle and logo was all me, sir. I was…hoping to throw the trail somewhere else.”

Dr. Arkan laughed. “Well, as far as anyone knows, you’ve done just that. I…may…have messed up when reading the logs from your shuttle and accidentally erased them,” he said. “Of course, that menu is fiddly, and I think I might have erased four or five shuttle logs.”

“Th—thank you Dr. Arkan,” Astrid said. “We won’t ever do anything like this again.”

“Oh, you’ll do something similar, soon.” He smiled at her. “You’re going down with the next group to add cameras around the bluff. I have a feeling it’s about to be important to the caprids…at least those in 14-G. Also, if you could draw up a few similar glyphs in the same style, it would be interesting to see how close you get to what they follow up with.”

Astrid nodded. “Sure.”

Dr. Arkan rose. “All right, now get out of here. I’ve got to get my ire up again before I go talk to the UT group. Damn Terrors.”

“Go Pilots!” Gwen said, getting a harsh look from Dr. Arkan.

The three of them hurried out of the lecture hall. “I think you got him started again, Gwen.”

“What can I say, Dani? I’ve got spirit!”

“And I’ve had too many spirits,” Astrid said. “I’m going back to my dorm and sleeping for a week.”

“Don’t forget the paper,” Gwen said.

“It’s just a riff on a paper I did for EA-451 at CalTech,” Astrid said. “One day touch-up, tops.”

“You think we can use the stuff he told us about the laser and stuff?” Dani asked.

“Not unless you can find his doctoral thesis in the library,” Astrid said. “If you want, I still have my old 201 textbook somewhere if you want to borrow it.”

“Only if I can’t find enough sources in the library,” Gwen said. “It’s kind of a bummer to know that it’s not the whole story.”

“I have a feeling that a lot of textbooks are that way,” Astrid said. “Somebody did something, and someone else tried to condense it into a few glyphs and that’s all we get.”

prompt: Write a story involving a portal into a parallel universe.

available at Reedsy

Everyone over the age of two knows how doors work. You can open a door and go from one space to another, and from the other to the one. That’s it. Nothing more. Except for the door that stood open in front of Scott.

The landlady had insisted that his new apartment was laid out exactly like the model unit. The model unit’s walk-in closet only had one door, though. This second door had to lead outside his apartment. By the location of his corner apartment, it should lead directly outside.

He had opened it, hoping to be pleasantly surprised by a secret balcony, only to see another bedroom beyond the door. Leaving the door open, he rushed out of the closet, into the bathroom that shared an outside wall with the closet. The small, frosted glass window in the bathroom let in the light of the sun, dappled shadows from the large trees swaying in the breeze. There was nothing where the room on the other side of the closet would be.

Scott returned to the closet and looked at the apartment on the other side of the second door in his closet. It had to be an optical illusion of some sort. He opened one of the boxes he’d been about to unpack and pulled out a plastic hangar.

He tried to tap on the mirror or screen or whatever lay beyond the door. There was nothing. He tossed the hanger, thinking that it might go back a foot or two. The hanger sailed halfway across the other bedroom and clattered to the floor.

“Hello?” He leaned through the doorway. “Anyone here?”

When there was no answer, he stepped through and picked up the hangar. The bedroom looked like the one he’d just left, but oriented on the other side of the building.

He looked around the apartment that shouldn’t exist. The sound of voices from the hallway, one of them the landlady’s, ended his exploration early. He returned through the closet to his own apartment.

Scott shut the second door, and decided he would get a lock for it and just pay for the damages out of his deposit. He dropped the hangar back into the box he’d just opened, except it was still sealed tight.

Looking around the room, everything seemed as he remembered it…maybe? He wandered through the apartment, stopping in the kitchen. He’d stashed the new yellow broom next to the fridge. It wasn’t his first choice for colors, but it was the last one the store had in stock.

His freshly signed lease was still sitting on the breakfast bar. He checked beside the fridge. The broom was there, but it was a powder blue. This was not his apartment…at least, not the one he’d been in just ten minutes ago.

Scott returned to the bedroom and began going through the boxes. He recognized most of the items, with a few minor inconsistencies. He put on a pair of sneakers, grabbed his wallet off the bed and dropped his keys into his pocket.

He looked through the wallet. Everything looked normal, except that he had two-hundred-thirty dollars in cash. He never carried cash unless it was a necessity, and he’d had none when he’d first stepped into the apartment.

If he’d gone through the door into another universe, did that mean that coming back through didn’t return him to his starting position? Scott needed to think about it, and more than that, he needed a drink.

“Day drinking,” he said to his reflection in the mirror. “If it doesn’t solve the problem, at least it makes it seem less daunting.”

He left the apartment and walked to the corner market. It looked the same on the outside, but he’d only seen it when coming to view the apartment and then when moving in.

The sign on the door read Lotto, Deli Sandwich’s & Cold Drink’s…complete with the superfluous apostrophes. Scott took a deep breath and promised himself he wouldn’t let it annoy him. There were bigger things at play here.

He found the alcohol where he expected it, in the locked cabinet behind the cashier. “A bottle of the 12-year Irish whiskey, please.”

“ID?” the woman at the register asked.

He showed his driver’s license, and she motioned him to turn it around. He did so, and she scanned the barcode on the back and seemed satisfied with the sound the register made.

She unlocked the cabinet, removed the only bottle of its kind, and locked the cabinet before placing it near the register, out of his reach. “That’s seventy-one-fifty,” she said. “Anything else?”

Scott shook his head. “No thanks.” He placed a hundred-dollar bill on the counter.

The cashier ran a pen across the bill to ensure it was real, then wrapped the bottle in a paper bag and passed it across the counter followed by his change. “New face,” she said. “You just moved into the Argo?” she asked.

“The Argo?”

“River Greens Overlook apartments,” she said. “RGO…Argo.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“See you around then, Scott,” she said. “I’m Tiffany. And since you aren’t buying a bottle of hooch, you’re either rich or not a full-time drunk. Both of which are rare around here during work hours.”

“Yeah, just moving in today,” he said.

He went back to his apartment and looked over everything again. The broom was still powder blue. He cracked the bottle and was about to swig directly from it when he stopped himself.

A minute of digging through the two kitchen boxes brought him to the rocks glasses. He pulled one out, wiped the inside with the paper towels it had been packed in, and poured himself two fingers of whiskey.

It was smooth and warmed his insides. Carrying the glass, he went back into the bedroom and looked in the closet. The second door was still there, and still closed.

He drained the glass and went back to the kitchen for a refill. While there, he checked the drawers for anything that might have been left behind.

In the back of one drawer, he found a piece of sidewalk chalk. It gave him an idea.

Scott went to the bedroom and marked the floor just outside the closet with a 3. He entered the closet and marked the floor there with another 3. He opened the door and looked at the bedroom beyond. Reaching through with just one hand and the chalk, he marked the floor there with “4?” and pulled his hand back.

The marks in the closet and bedroom remained unchanged. Still clutching the chalk and drink, he stepped halfway through the door.

Looking back, the marks seemed the same. He took a deep breath and stepped through the rest of the way.

The floor in front of him still carried the same mark. The floor in the closet and the floor in the bedroom beyond were marked 11.

He knew this was bad, but he wasn’t sure how bad. He erased the question mark from the floor, leaving the 4, then checked the kitchen. The broom was still powder blue, but his signature on the lease agreement looked off, and there was no bottle of whiskey on the counter.

Scott wondered about the other versions of him. Were they trapped, going through the same thing he was? The reversed apartment layout felt wrong, so he took a deep breath and headed back to the closet.

Time to step into number eleven, he thought. He began drawing a line from the middle of the bedroom into the closet, and as he stepped through the door, he found the line continuing into the bedroom, right past the number 11.

On looking back, the line was there, running past the number 10 rather than 4. How many times have I done this? he wondered. He hoped this time there would be a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen. There was, but it was half empty. He poured another two fingers and checked the broom…pink with flowers.

Scott picked up the lease agreement and didn’t recognize the signature at all. He flipped it over to write a message to one of his other selves, only to find one already there.

“My name is Scottie, 31 years old, born in San Francisco, California, Mexico. Every time I go through the second door in the closet everything changes. I am just trying to get back home. I no longer think it’s possible, but I keep trying.”

Scott went to the bedroom and looked through the boxes. Women’s clothing. He left the apartment and went to the corner market. The sign on the door read, Lotto, Deli Sandwiches, and Cold Drinks. Well, that was at least a positive change.

He walked in. “Tiffany, right?”

“Do I know you? Oh, wait, you look just like the woman that was in here earlier. Are you her brother?”

“Uh, yeah.” He headed to the soft drink cooler and selected something high in caffeine. He brought it to the counter where she scanned it, and he tried his bank card on the machine, but it was rejected.

“Machine’s acting up again,” Tiffany said. “Do you have cash?”

Scott pulled out the change he’d gotten earlier and laid a twenty on the counter.

“What’s that?” Tiffany asked. “Foreign money from somewhere? We only take dollars. North American dollars.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I must’ve grabbed my travel wallet. I’ll come back for it later.”

Scott returned to the apartment and looked at the message again. He turned over the lease agreement and checked the particulars. This was no longer California, USA, but was “Western Coastal Territory, NA.”

He sat in front of the closet with the remainder of the bottle. He would wait until another version of himself showed up. Maybe stop himself…herself?…before they stepped all the way through to see if “trading” universes was possible.

If another version of him didn’t show up, well, at least it would take a while to enjoy the rest of the whiskey. He would let his future, empty-bottle self figure out the next move then.

prompt: Write a story inspired by the phrase “The short end of the stick.”

available at Reedsy

Few things are as disheartening as being given a choice that is no choice at all. Technically, it was a choice, but the only options were bad or worst. If she called the vote for the resolution, Earth would become a vassal state of multi-star-system empire for which citizens were resources to be used as the empire saw fit.

The other option would be not to call for the resolution, at which point the blockade of gargantuan warships protecting Earth would leave. Without their protection, Earth would have to fight off the other group of warships currently amassed around Jupiter.

The whole thing started with that other fleet. They had appeared out of a wash of radio waves and x-ray. Where before had been empty space, hundreds of ships appeared. Despite their odd shapes, it was obvious what they were when they moved into a formation and began to head toward Earth.

While governments were still trying to figure out a response to what seemed like a hostile force, a second force materialized in the same manner, just outside the moon’s orbit, and settled into a quick formation around Earth.

It wasn’t like the movies. Nobody tried firing missiles into high orbit to intercept; no hot-shot pilot strapped into an experimental space plane to confront them. The world held their collective breath.

Lara Biagi had been Secretary General for less than a month. As much as she had hoped there were others “out there” in the universe, she had hoped any meeting might’ve been more…friendly.

Instead, from the fleet surrounding Earth, a small craft landed in front of the UN building. Smaller than the fighter jets that shadowed it on its way down, it looked out of place, like a car parked in front of a medieval village reconstruction.

The sole occupant walked into the General Assembly, unfazed by the attempts of the security teams to stop it. No one could get within a meter of it without being thrown back violently. Bullets just…stopped on that barrier and dropped to the ground.

When it motioned for Lara to move over so it could take the podium, she did. It was humanoid, covered with fine scales, with three long fingers and a long thumb on each hand, all of which had too many joints.

That was when it offered the “protection” of its Empire of the Galactic Egg against the other creatures it called the Formoran Raiders. The deciding factor was when it showed what the other creatures looked like. Giant insect-like creatures covered in armor and carrying far too much weaponry.

Now it was down to her to make the call. Either hope that Earth could stand up to the bugs or become part of the Empire of the Galactic Egg. Lara hoped that one of the permanent security council members would veto the resolution before it got off the ground, then it wouldn’t be her fault any longer.

“The resolution for all member nations to join the Empire of the Galactic Egg is hereby put to a vote in the General Assembly.” She banged the gavel and waited for the results to come in.

The alien looked at her with its unreadable black eyes. At least, she thought it was looking at her, based on which way its head was turned.

When the vote was called, there were no dissensions and only three abstentions. She felt ill as she read the resolution into the record, making Earth a subordinate member of the Empire of the Galactic Egg. The aliens seemed to come prepared, as another dozen ships landed around the UN building and the alien lizard people started walking through the assembly making their wishes known.

The aliens demanded seventeen metric tonnes of fissile material, (plutonium or uranium), two million conscripts for their military, and another six million conscripts for labor. All to be provided in twenty-four hours, or they would arbitrarily pluck the conscripts from the populace and take the materials from every power plant and weapon. Just like that, Earth had become slaves.

They even brought their own flag, replacing the UN flag with their colors; a grey flag with subtle stripes and a white glyph two-thirds of the way to the fly end.

The assembly sat; shock, dread, and heavy expectation permeating the chamber.

There was a steady murmur of conversation on the floor when an aide ran to her side with a message. She opened it and swallowed hard. She nodded at the aide who left just as fast as he had arrived.

Lara stood at the podium and cleared her throat. “Honorable members of the General Assembly, I have been given a message to read to you.”

Her hands shook as she looked at the paper and glanced back at the alien. “This message, sent from the fleet around Jupiter, was embedded in the radio waves their fleet emitted as they arrived.

The US Navy has just finished deciphering it.”

There was a commotion on the floor.

Lara held up a hand. “We the people of the Formoran Reach wish to alert you to the imminent arrival of the slavers of—”

The alien cut her off by muting her mic. “Lies! They tell you lies to lower your guard, in order to strip your planet of resources and persons.”

 One of the members on the floor called out, “How is that any different from you?”

“Silence!” The alien darkened the lights, leaving only itself illuminated.

“You, subjects of the Empire, are to provide your levies. Until that time, all other activities are a waste of Empire resources. Leave at once.”

Lara turned to go, when the alien grabbed her shoulder. “Except you. Your world has elected you leader, you are useful to us.”

“You don’t understand,” Lara said, “I only preside over the people here. They now must get their governments to go along. I can only guess how badly most will react.”

“There is no longer a need for any government beyond ours,” the alien said, “and you are our Governor on this planet. Any subjects that attempt to resist the will of the Empire will be dealt with. That is not your concern, now.”

Once the chamber had emptied out, Lara braced herself to confront the alien. Based on what she’d read in the message, she had to ask. “If we had said no, what would the Empire have done?”

The alien pointed at the message Lara still clutched. “They told you that we leave no ground for them? Well, Governor, they aren’t wrong. We would have purged your world to keep it out of their mandibles.”

“I wish they’d voted no,” she said. “A quick death would be preferable to our enslavement. You’ve already demanded a massive chunk of the population. When does it stop? When the Earth is empty?”

“One-tenth of one percent is a light demand. The Empire will not allow this planet to empty as long as it proves beneficial to our aims.” The alien stopped for a moment, as if listening. “I am informed that the raiders have left the system. You are safe.”

“Are we, though?”

“Governor, of all the creatures on this planet, you are the most useful to us as leader of this planet…providing you follow our instructions. That makes you the safest subject in this system.”

In the short time Lara had spent staring at the message, she had memorized the last line, an apology for arriving late, and a way to contact them if Earth wanted to fight back.

Rather than risk the aliens seeing the message, she pulled a lighter out of her pocket and lit the message on fire, letting it burn in front of the alien. “I guess we won’t be needing this anymore.”

The alien cocked its head to one side. “It seems your species is highly adaptable, and open to the acceptance of reality. It bodes well for your people and for the Empire.”

The alien walked toward the chamber doors. “Come, Governor, we will show you how to oversee the transfer of the levies.”

“There will be a number of people who will want my head,” she said. “Could I request a couple of the human guards for my personal safety?”

“We can keep you safer than any of your own people.”

“Be that as it may, we are a social species, and having others of my kind around I can count on would make me feel more secure.”

“We will allow it,” the alien said.

Lara thought about something her grandmother had taught her long ago; “When you get the short end of the stick, don’t give up. Hold on tighter and fight harder.” She didn’t know how, but she would be doing exactly that.

prompt: Write about someone finding a treasure in an unexpected place.

available at Reedsy

Henri was a war reporter, now. Reporting was both his vocation and his calling. He hadn’t planned on being a war correspondent, but he was in the right place at the right time…or perhaps the wrong place and time. He was still divided on that.

He had been on the planet covering the people affected by the arguments between the beetle-like Rinikians and the furry, six-limbed Atalans. The argument had played out in the Galactic Unity for months. Both claimed ownership of a star system that wasn’t worth the effort to colonize.

There was no love lost between either of the species and the majority of the GU. They were both forbidden from certain technologies and sanctioned by at least half the member species for sapient rights violations.

Still, being driven by the need to know and show the reality of a strange situation, Henri had landed on the only habitable planet in the system. What he found was a string of small towns surrounded by farms tied together by a well-trodden path.

The mixed communities of Rinikians and Atalans who had managed to escape their respective repressive regimes, lacked any convenience. Despite the harsh conditions, linguistic barriers, and a lifetime of conditioning that “other” was the same as evil, the two species worked well together.

What had started as a last-ditch effort at escape for dissidents and enemies of the state, had evolved into an agrarian society with shared values, an elected board of leaders, and a few common-sense laws. Another thing Henri found there was a completely new language; a patois of Galactic Common and bits from Rinikian and Atalan languages. Personal translators were nowhere to be found.

He had spent nearly seventy local days reporting on the community and culture of this expat haven. He was careful not to show any faces or identifying features of those he interviewed for the safety of their families that might still be in danger. It was while he was still gaining the trust of some of the more cautious members of the community that the shooting started.

“This is Henri Duono, reporting from the planet known by the inhabitants as Idima, the local language word for ‘sanctuary.’ The ongoing fight between Riniki and Atal playing out in the GU is not about resources or strategic location; it is strictly an attempt to silence an already marginalized community of dissidents from both systems.”

He turned so that the burning field behind him took up the full of the frame background. “This field behind me, torched by Rinikian troops was the last hope the people of Idima had for food in the coming winter.”

Henri walked the path to the nearest town, the camera drone following. “As you can see, little is left of this town beyond rubble. The same is playing out along all fourteen towns that made up the entire population of the planet.

“Both Riniki and Atal governments claimed to be fighting a ground war on the planet referred to as G-7344-1-B, in order to establish a presence. Yet, of the entire planet with no other population, they chose to carry out their war here.

“To assume that either side is trying to do anything other than kill escaped dissidents is to be blind to the reality. Since the first shot was fired seventeen local days ago, Riniki and Atal troops have never fired on each other, despite their claims.”

He walked to a bombed-out structure made of mud bricks and led the drone camera into the part that was remaining. “Riniki troops claimed Atal troops were hiding in this building, yet the Atal have not entered Town Nine once in the past seventeen days.”

He picked up a piece of paper with a crude drawing of a Rinikian and an Atalan side-by-side under a purple moon with writing in the Idima script below it. “This schoolhouse, a direct target of Rinikian troops was being used as a shelter at the time of the attack. This child’s drawing is exactly the sort of thing that both governments are trying to erase.”

An inbound rocket caught his attention, and he ducked behind the rubble as an already flattened building was hit again. “These sporadic attacks have been going on for hours now. Idiman casualties have been estimated by the surviving members of the leaders board to be between ten and twelve thousand. Nearly a full third of the entire population.”

He set the camera to do a slow sweep around the building. Rinikian and Atalan bodies littered the rubble; all in civilian clothes, many obviously children.

After walking back to the edge of the field, he composed himself and looked into the camera again. “For now, the remaining population remains safely hidden away in a location unknown to either the Rinikians or the Atalans. I have only intermittent communications with them, but they tell me that they are doing everything they can to keep their spirits up.

“They are lacking medical supplies and food, and the current actions of the Rinikian and Atalan troops seem to be aimed at starving them out. It is not an exaggeration to call the actions of both governments genocidal.”

He moved into a closeup position. “The population of Idima is a unique culture, bound by shared hardships, and a shared history. The destruction of these people is a heinous crime, and it is high time the Galactic Unity recognize and act on this.” His eyes filled with tears as he struggled to choke down the sobs that threatened.

“This is Henri Duono, reporting live from Idima, just outside Town Nine.”

He hit the button on his subspace transmit pack to end the transmission and dropped to his knees and wept. The danger didn’t bother him, but the cruel destruction cut him to his core.

I don’t know if I can keep doing this, he thought. The images of the small bodies in the schoolhouse returned to him, especially the Atalan child that had died clinging on to a Rinikian adult. I have to keep doing this, for them.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat watching the field burn, but as the fire reached the native plants around the edges of the field it sputtered out. The sun had set and the bluish moon, smaller than Earth’s but still large for a planet this size, shone from overhead.

A movement in the plants outside the field caught his attention. A Rinikian child looked in all directions before running toward him. His instincts had him start transmitting.

“Elder Henri,” he said in Idiman patois, “my friend hurt. You no get shot at, you help?”

He responded in the same patois. “I help. Where friend?”

The small, beetle-like creature bent his foreparts up like a centaur and held a manipulator up to hold his hand. “I show.”

He let the child lead him out to the high bushes that made up most of the foliage in the area. Hidden there among the bushes was an Atalan child with an injured rear leg.

“I need to make a splint,” he said, before realizing he wasn’t speaking patois. “I make thing to hold still.”

He scanned the ground around him but found nothing stiff enough. He removed his armor vest and removed the front flaps where they connected and overlapped the stiffer back. The odd shape of the front panels wouldn’t work, so he stepped on the back and lifted the edges to bend it into a U-shape.

The curved armor panel, combined with his jacket liner for padding and the outer cloth of the armor vest for straps made a sturdy splint. It was a little longer than the child’s leg, but it kept it immobile.

“How you get here?” Henri asked, carefully picking up the injured child and cradling it against his chest.

“We in school when…booksh!” The Rinikian child made the sound of a bomb.

Henri couldn’t think of a word in the Idiman patois for bomb or missile and thought there might not be one…yet. The Atalan child clung on to him in silence.

“What names you?” he asked.

“I Rirari,” the Rinikian child said. “She Silah.”

“Your elders?” Henri asked.

Rirari pulled his legs into his carapace. “In school. They die.”

Silah pulled tighter to Henri and let out a low keening he knew to be their form of weeping. He rocked her and whispered in her ear, focusing on his tone of voice to carry the message rather than trying to translate everything to patois. “I’m here for you, and I won’t let go until we find you someplace safe.”

The camera drone chimed. Something was heading their direction. Henri stood to see what was coming. A Rinikian troop carrier was trundling across the field. He didn’t expect them to fire on him, since neither they nor the Atalans wanted to risk a war with Earth.

They called out over a loudspeaker in Galactic Common. “Release the Rinikian child to us and we’ll let you go.”

Rirari ducked half behind Henri’s legs. “What they say, elder?”

“They want you to go with them.”

“No! No no no no no!”

As the word was the same in Galactic Common, the soldiers knew the child’s opinion on it. “We will bring you back to your real home,” they said, “with the best food, the best schools, and help you become someone important.”

Using Henri as a translator, Rirari answered with, “No! You killed my parents and hurt my friend. Go away! I’ll stay with Mister Henri.”

One of the troops raised a rifle and aimed at Henri. He turned his back to the soldier, trying to shield Silah. The camera drone flew in for a closer look at the soldier before backing up to put the scene into context.

At least one of the soldiers had enough sense to put a stop to it. Henri’s translator picked up part of the conversation as the camera recorded and transmitted it.

“Don’t shoot the Terran, idiot! And don’t do anything while the camera is watching. Those kids are already dead anyway. The Atalans are making a sweep, and we’re swapping east with them, so we need to clear out.”

By the end of the week, with Henri reporting nearly around the clock, and the children always on camera with him, a relief ship touched down in the burnt field outside Town Nine.

The medics properly set Silah’s leg and treated the malnourishment of both children and Henri. As the ship flew both the flag of the GU and the Terran allied planets, both armies kept their distance.

Aid workers, supported by GU peacekeeping forces, set up a safe area for refugees there in Town Nine, and still Henri continued to document the unfolding story. The aid ship brought more drone cameras, on which he caught Atalan and Rinikian troops passing each other, while shooting toward the towns they were “trading.”

When the truth about the planning of the sham war came out, both the Rinikian and Atalan governments were stripped of all their privileges in the GU and the leaders of both were wanted for crimes against sapients. The troops on Idima were returned to their home worlds except for a few who managed to run away and ask for asylum with the aid workers.

Henri had never considered himself the parenting sort, but after a year with Silah and Rirari, it just felt normal. While the GU managed to get the warring factions off the planet, it considered the system too sparsely populated to be considered for inclusion in the GU. That didn’t mean that they pulled the continuing aid and security forces, though.

“This is Henri Duono, reporting from Town Nine on Idima, where rebuilding is continuing at an increased pace.

“The Idiman board of leaders is currently considering an offer from the Terran Alliance to become a member system. If they choose to, Parliament has guaranteed that they would have a voting seat in both the Terran Parliament and the GU, giving up one of the four GU seats currently held by humans.

“Until that decision is reached, however, the Idiman people are still reliant on aid from the GU.

“You see behind me the rebuilt schoolhouse, once a scene of major tragedy, now a symbol of hope. The wing there to the side — with the currently long queue — is the new Office for Adoptions and Child Welfare where last week I got these.” He held up two adoption certificates in Idiman and Galactic Common.

“You can see there’s quite a line of volunteers for foster care or adoption, but nowhere near enough. Nearly a thousand orphaned children are still in need of a home. The newly passed adoption laws allow non-Idimans to adopt here, with the stipulation that the child is raised on Idima until the age of majority.

“Many of those volunteers, from several systems, have come to teach the sciences, technology, galactic history, and languages and have made fostering children part of their mission. Meanwhile, Idiman patois has been recognized by the GU as an official language and added to most translators.”

Rinikian, Atalan, and a few human children began pouring out of the schoolhouse. Rirari and Silah ran for Henri and grabbed his waist. “Hi daddy!” they called out.

Henri put a hand on each of their heads and smiled. “This is Henri Duono, Town Nine, Idima.”