Today’s story was inspired by this prompt from Scoot: write about “the Suff”. For more, see below….if you dare.
“Sir,” the young lieutenant said, “it’s the only way.”
They were out of options. The skies were full of ships. All anybody knew was that they were alien, and they hadn’t come to make friends. When an envoy waving a white flag had been sent up in a rocket to ask about peace, the aliens had vaporized the ship. Then they’d brought an asteroid from the belt beyond Mars all the way to Earth, flung it into the atmosphere and then vaporized the thing as a show of power. No one could get a handle on just exactly how they had done all of that, but everyone from the Pentagon to NATO agreed the tech the aliens had displayed was way beyond anything anybody on Earth could muster. The humans didn’t have a chance, unless they tried something desperate.
The President closed his eyes. He’d sent his aide to search for solutions, long-shots, anything. He’d hoped maybe Area 51 had been real and the conspiracy theorists had been right. They had, but not about that.
“Fine,” he said at last, “Send it.”
Dorp, Fleet Commander of the Armies of Sqing, wasn’t happy about what his ships were about to do to the little blue planet. But here he was, and he had his father’s orders. He was about to give the firing command when one of his officers raised a tentacle. “We’re receiving a signal from the bipeds. Some sort of document.”
“Hm,” Dorp said. “Run it through the translation matrix. Probably terms of surrender.” It’s what he would’ve done in their place, he thought, but didn’t risk saying aloud.
“Curious,” his officer said. “It’s some sort of narrative? Perhaps one of their pre-surrender rituals. This translation may not be right: it says the title is the Suff.”
Dorp rolled his eyes. He’d made a study of xenolinguistics, but even an idiot knew that translation matrices had trouble with native words. Obviously this was true now. “We aren’t here to learn their rituals, and if they’re going to waste time, we might as well begin the invasion. Get rid of the document, and open fire.”
He turned towards the viewscreen, expecting the little blue ball to light up in streaks of red and yellow flame. It didn’t. “Well?” he said, without turning.
“Commander,” his officer said, a note of fear in the squidling’s voice. “Our firing protocols are being… overridden.”
“What? Overriden how?”
“I don’t know! And I can’t erase the document! It keeps reappearing! This Suff, it won’t go-”
Exactly nine moments later, every last one of the alien ships exploded. The President stared, amazed. “What was that?”
“You don’t want to know,” the aide said, his eyes haunted. “Trust me. You don’t.”
That is some powerful suff!
Gold as always! Glad to see a reprise of Dorp!