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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1744354-Lights-out
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by guggy Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E · Other · Sci-fi · #1744354
Short, quirky tale. Thanks for reading.
Dark brooded at the cave's entrance, kept there by the roaring fire within. Tu'gala sat beside that blaze, poking, absent-mindedly, within its flames with a thin branch of a sapling.
He spent most evenings like this, lost in thought as he tended the night-time beacon against the cold dark, as the tribe slumbered. Tu'gala looked over at the mass of sleeping bodies, entwined into a great heap for warmth and protection.
The air within the cave stank of sweat and dead meat. That day's kill, a great elk, bled out the last of its blood onto the dry leaves of the floor from the large wooden rack secured to the cave's wall by rawhide straps.
Tu'gala looked into the glazed eyes of the beast, its tongue hung limp from slack jaws. Tu'gala grunted to himself, a good days hunting. Then, the beast's eye shone momentarily.
Frightened, Tu'gala crept back from the fire, reaching out his arm for a club as he did so. The eye shone again, Tu'gala froze, transfixed with fear and wonder. The light died again.
Seizing his chance, Tu'gala rushed from the ground to pound the offending eye. He stopped when the eye was no more, bar a ragged hole in the elk's head. Satisfied, he turned once more to the safety of the fire, it was then he seen the lights out on the distance plain.
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Ugnabar studied the device in his hand, an array of coloured lines waved over the screen and reflected on the dark visor of his helm. The line coloured green did an excited dance over the screen. Ugnabar gulped and looked out across the midnight plain. Quickly he pocketed the reader.
"Something wrong, Navigator Ugnabar?"
Ugnabar froze in his tracks. "No, Commander Dren-kar. But I don't think we'll find what we want here. Maybe we should move on and try somewhere else?"
Dren-kar made to answer, but a large rock landed at his feet with a thud. He looked down at that chunk of stone with astonishment, then outward from whence it came.
"Ship, full lights," he hissed.
The ship's lights washed over the plain, bringing day to five square mile of bush and long grass. Out among those grasses, Tu'gala jumped and danced with his club held high.
"Ugnabar, translate and no lies," Dren-kar sighed. His helmed head shook in resignation.
Timidly, Ugnabar began the translation. "Turn off your lights. We are trying to sleep. Piss off back home... The rest is just rather colourful curses and slights on our manliness, Sir."
Dren-kar turned back towards the ship, his shoulders slumped. "Cut the lights we're coming back onboard."
The plain returned to black. Ugnabar jogged till he caught up with the Commander. "Sir..."
The palm of the gloved hand came right before his visor. "Enough! Call yourself a navigator? We're a few million years out. You're on report."
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As the ship lifted off and glided out among the stars, Tu'gala turned and sauntered back to the cave. He swung the club in his hand, proud of himself. That was the third time this year he ran those idiots off.
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