Planet 4662/1183J/983!/11C | Short Story

RECONNAISANCE REPORT – URGENT STOP

PLANET 4662/1183J/983!/11C STOP

FOR IMMEDIATE ONWARDS TRANSMISSION TO TRANSGALACTIC ANALYSIS CENTRE STOP

FAO ADMIRAL PEATY STOP

MA’AM STOP

AT THE MEDIAN LARGE SENSOR ARRAY YESTERDAY 2526HRS A NOTABLE OBSERVATION WAS MADE STOP

AS PER PROTOCOL WE ARE NOTIFYING YOU AS THE OBSERVED OBJECT AND PHENOMENA MEET THE CRITERIA FOR IMMEDIATE FLAGGING MEMO 62 V.3 REFERS STOP

THE AFOREMENTIONED PLANET 4662/1183J/983!/11C APPEARS TO BE COVERED IN LIQUID WATER WITH AN ATMOSPHERE OF NITROGEN AND OXYGEN STOP

ALTHOUGH PLANET 4662/1183J/983!/11C IS 2.5 MILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY ADVANCES IN PLASMASCOPE TECHNOLOGY HAVE ALLOWED US TO OBSERVE THE OBJECT AS IT WAS APPROX 100000 YEARS AGO STOP

CURRENT ANALYSIS SUGGESTS A GROUP OF SEMI-ADVANCED SAPIENS MIGRATING FROM A CENTRAL LAND MASS IN ALL DIRECTIONS STOP

AS OPPOSED TO OTHER NOTABLE OBSERVATIONS SAPIENS APPEAR TO BE FEW IN NUMBER LARGELY PEACEABLE AND WITH PLENTIFUL RESOURCES FOR EXPANSION STOP

CLIMATE IS PREDICTED TO BE LARGELY STABLE IF CHALLENGING FOR SAPIENS STOP

POTENTIAL FOR LOCALISED CONFLICT ESTIMATED TO BE LOW STOP

IF TRAVEL IS IMMEDIATELY COMMENCED ESTIMATED ARRIVAL IS MODELLED TO COINCIDE WITH DEVELOPMENT OF FUSION ENERGY PRODUCTION FULL SOCIAL MEDIA COVERAGE AND REMOVAL OF FOOD AND WATER INSECURITY STOP

SUGGEST INITIATING OPERATION MILKY WAY AND CONSIDER INITIAL APPROACH RE SHARING OF CULTURES AND TO PROVIDE TECHNOLOGY WHICH MIGHT ASSIST IN PLANETARY DEVELOPMENT STOP END MESSAGE

*Thanks for reading, folks. Images courtesy of Yuri Samoilov. My recent short stories include ‘Cleanliness is Next…‘ and ‘We, the Dead‘.

---

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com and tweets at https://twitter.com/mjrichardso0.