Lasers* Lost In Space

                   Lasers^* Lost in Space

     Sorrina stops climbing the ladder that leads up to the
square opening at the top of it. She looks through that
opening up at the sky above them as two missiles hit and
destroy each other. When they do that it sends pieces of
them coming down toward Sorrina.

     Most of those pieces don’t come through that opening.
But some do. Sorrina drops her head to avoid those pieces.
Then she places both hands and feet on the sides of the
ladder she is on and slides down it to the top level of
where they are at.

     “Another attack has started,” says Sorrina as more
explosions above them happen. Sending quite a few pieces to
rain down on her. “We don’t have too much time before they
get here too.”

     Morgam uses his right arm to cover his eyes as he looks
up at the opening above him as more explosions and pieces
happen above them. “I say that if we are lucky, we may have
about an hour or two before this attack gets to us.”

     “Only one or two hours!” Sorrina covers her eyes too as
she looks up at the pieces falling on them too. “I don’t
think we have even that long.”

     Sorrina looks down the corridor they are in, in both
directions before she continues. “Please, tell me what is
going on. Why is it taking us so long here?”

     “It’s because this one is twice as big as the last six,
we have checked out,” answers Morgam. “I think this building
is the main one.”

     “If that’s true, they what we are looking for should be
here,” says Sorrina. “Why haven’t we found them yet?”

     Morgam slowly shakes his head ‘no’ and sighs. “I don’t
know. But all four of our groups have just contacted me. And
they have finished checking out their level. They are on
their way to the next four.”

     “Contact them back,” responds Sorrina. “Tell them that
we are on our way to the bottom level to check it out. And
that they need to check their levels out as quick as they
can because I don’t think that we have too much time left
before Ghom and Homi get here.”

     Morgam starts contacting the four groups as Sorrina and
he starts walking down that corridor. At least they do until
they get to the end of it. Then Sorrina pushes the bottom of
nine small round gems on the wall next to them. That corner
of the corridor that they are on begins to move. It takes
them down a long square hole only to stop when they get to
the bottom of it.

     Sorrina heads for the first entrance in that corridor
that slides open as she gets near it. “These are where the
leaders of this project worked. If what we are looking for
isn’t here somewhere, then we need to get all the data and
information that we can from here.”

                             #

     Morgam walks toward Sorrina at the other end of that
large room. Putting two fingers to his lips to quiet down
about four hundred other Ghom-Homis talking among themselves
in small groups as he heads to stand by Sorrina. After he
gets to her, he turns to face the others there too.

     “I know that a lot of you have been wondering what we
have been doing for the last eight months,” says Sorrina as
loud as she can to be heard over the mumbling still going on
with most of the other Ghom-Homis there.

     The other Ghom-Homis do hear her. They are all now
facing her and quit as she continues talking. “We have been
trying to find something that will end this conflict between
Ghom and Homi.”

     “This conflict hasn’t been that bad for the first
thirty years that it has been going on because it has been
missiles and rockets flying over us in it. But when they
bring their conflict to our small planet, that’s when we
start fighting back.”

     “That is what we have been doing for the past five
years. But we have the same advanced weapons as Ghom and
Homi have. True, we haven’t used any missiles or rockets.
All of our fighting have been on Ghom-Homi. But we need
something different if we want to end this conflict and save
our planet before it’s too late.”

     Sorrina can see that the other Ghom-Homis there want to
hear what she is saying as she looks among them. “For the
last eight months that is what we have been doing. We have
been looking for something different. And we have found it.”

     “When we first colonized this planet from both Ghom and
Homi almost a hundred years ago, we got into a conflict too.
But we worked it out within a couple of years. And we have
been one planet since then.”

     “We don’t know what the conflict is between Ghom and
Homi. And we don’t care. All we care about is that it has
come to Ghom-Homi. And we don’t want it here.”

     Sorrina takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
“When we first got here, we used simple weapons in our
fighting. It was the creation of a laser by both sides
working together that ended it.”

     “Like most planets, we advanced from there. And the
laser has all but been forgotten. That is what we have been
looking for. There is a feeling that there are a lot of
these laser weapons somewhere on Ghom-Homi. And we have
found them.”

     “The only problem is they aren’t here. They are in
space between our planet and both Ghom and Homi in two
different areas of space between us and them.”

     Sorrina sighs. “It’s not going to be easy. But I know
we can do it. What I don’t know is if we can without Ghom
and Homi finding out what’s going on. And killing us
before we can use them.”

                             #

     A small spaceship lifts off Ghom-Homi. And heads for
the yellow clouds above them. Just before they get to those
clouds, the spaceship disappears. The only indication it’s
still there is the hole it makes in those clouds. Sorrina
can see what is happening on the large viewscreen in front
of her.

     Sorrina glances at Billun who is sitting next to her as
she looks at about two hundred Ghom-Homis seated behind
them. She stops looking when she sees Billun again. “Billun,
keep your eyes on any Homis, missiles, or rockets that may
come our way.”

     “We may know about where those laser weapons are at,”
continues Sorrina. “But we don’t want any surprises before
we can get those weapons.”

     “I have already started doing it,” replies Billun. “So
far, I haven’t seen anyone or anything yet.”

     Sorrina returns to looking at the other Ghom-Homis
behind them. “We should be getting to those lasers within a
few minutes.”

     “Morgam, how are you doing?” Asks Sorrina after she
returns to looking at the main viewscreen again.

     The image of almost nothing but darkness in front of
them changes to Morgam. “We have already found our lasers.
And there are a whole lot of them. Enough for us to take
over both Ghom and Homi if we wanted to do it.”

     “All I want to do is end this conflict,” says Sorrina.
“And I don’t care how we do it. If we can’t with these
lasers, we will find another way to end it. I don’t think
that we will need to find any other way, though.”

     Morgam smiles. “I agree with you about that. And I
don’t think that we will have to wait too much longer for us
to prove it. We have already started collecting those laser
weapons. Our only problem is we may need another spaceship
to collect all of them.”

     Before Sorrina can reply to what Morgam has just been
saying she suddenly stops their spaceship. Morgam is no
longer on the main viewscreen. He has been replaced with the
darkness of space again. “This is where our laser weapons
are supposed to be. But they aren’t here.”

     “It’s there.” The voice of Morgam is the only thing
that can be heard in there right now. “All you need is the
correct combination of sounds and it will appear too.”

     “What kind of sounds are we looking for?” Sorrina asks.

     The voice of Morgam is silent for several seconds
before he answers Sorrina. “For us, it was fifteen beeps. I
think it will probably be the same for you.”

     After trying every combination that they can try for
almost an hour, those laser weapons finally appear. At least
Sorrina thinks that they are in the large metal container
that is about three times their size in front of them. “It
looks like we are going to need another spaceship too. Maybe
even more than one.”

                             #

     Billun looks over at Sorrina. “I have been wondering
something ever since we have found out about these laser
weapons. Why haven’t they been hit by Ghom or Homi in the
last thirty years? And why are they in space?”

     “I don’t know,” answers Sorrina. “Maybe they can sense
the danger and move out of the way. As for why they are
here, that I don’t know.”

     “Something else I don’t know is how much longer it’s
going to take us to finish getting all of these laser
weapons,” continues Sorrina. “The sooner we get them, the
faster we can join Morgram on Ghom-Homi.”

     Billun smiles. “We are almost finished getting them.
It’s going to be very tight for us and those lasers. But
they should all fit in our spaceship.”

     “At least it will be until we can start using them on
Ghom-Homi.” Sorrina leans forward slightly and points at the
viewscreen. “Is that what I think that it is?”

     “If it looks like a spaceship heading toward us, then
it’s what I see too,” says Billun after he looks at the
viewscreen. “What are we going to do now. We still have
about fifty Ghom-Homis out there getting our laser weapons.”

     Sorrina starts pushing buttons on the control panel in
front of them. “Delanni, there is a spaceship heading right
for us.”

     Delanni looks back at Sorrina and Billun. Who can see
her on the viewscreen in front of them. They are still
watching her as she talks to the other Ghom-Homis with her.
A few seconds later Delanni and the others there take a
couple of hand lasers out of the small containers they are
in. Then they turn over those now closed containers onto
their sides.

     A few minutes later the other spaceship is close enough
for the attack to begin. Using the overturned containers as
cover Delanni and the other Ghom-Homis with her start their
attack. They start firing their laser weapons at that other
spaceship. And it doesn’t take them too long before they
destroy it completely.

     Suddenly, Morgam appears on the main viewscreen to
replace the attack that Sorrina and Billun have just been
watching. “Is that you that just destroyed something big in
space? How did you do it?”

     “How do you think we did it?” Sorrina asks. “We use our
new hand lasers.”

     “If that’s true, then we have a big problem. The hand
lasers here on Ghom-Homi aren’t working,” says Morgam.

     Sorrina slowly smiles. “I think I know why the lasers
have been hidden in space. It’s because they can only be
used in space. That’s why they are called Space Lasers.”

     Billun looks at Sorrina. “If that’s true, how are we
going to end this conflict?”

     “We can still end it,” answers Sorrina. “It just means
we are going to have to do it from space. True, it’s not
going to be easy. But we can still do it. And we will. It’s
just going to take us a little longer.”


                    Word Count = 1,986


^* I’m only using words like laser(s), missile(s), rocket(s),
  etc. because of this contest. Normally, I try to use the
  terminology connected to the story. And most of the time I
  can do that. but I’m going to even try to do it on this one.