Author: Connor Long-Johnson

We haven’t forgotten the moment the monsters came, and we still pass on the stories of that day. They descended in their rocket ships, cutting holes through our peaceful skies and filling our air with their toxic fumes.
First, they came in drabbles, then in droves.
The hoards greedily stretched their hands over our fields, our forests, and our skies.
The Interplanetary Peoples Agreement is what they called it up there, where they make the decisions for the rest of the galaxy. Down here we call it The Suicide Pact.
We should never have made a deal with humans.
They brought wonders we could never have imagined, flying machines the size of continents, powered by fusion drives.
Language, words we have never heard of like megacorporation, capitalism, and petroleum, flew from their mouths and swayed into our ears like leaves to the ground, finding new life in the rich soil of our curiosity.
Their arrival gave us unspoken promises that we might escape our terrestrial bonds and fly among the stars, our dreams powered by human industry.
We willingly welcomed them, our arms and minds open.
Our curiosity set ablaze, burning brightly like the dual suns above.
Then the rumble of thunder signaled the arrival of the warships.
The dropships descended like carrion to feast on the carcass of Praxion-5.
We cowered while The Federation raped our planet, too weak to fight but too loyal to flee.
The starlight fled as The Undoer, the flagship of the Federation’s fleet, entered orbit over the Ebony Continent.
The fission drill opened a fissure the size of the Great Crystal Glacier in the desert. Turning the black sands to glass in search of fuel for their conquest of the stars.
Leaving us on our knees, the humans left, their hunger unsated.