Like a moth to a flame (Space War, Part 3)

Read Part 1, Part 2

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The present time

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It’s not even a race with time as the time has run out. The enemies are here, right in front of our planet and there is no way to escape. We will have to fight them.

The small vessel that came to transport me home is speeding as fast as it can. It’s faster than the Splerion’s ship.

”They aren’t trying to catch up”, the captain remarks but doesn’t sound happy about it. ”They’re just floating in space. Fired a few shots to send us flying and then stopped. Why did they do that?”

”Maybe they’re just a scout”, I suggest. ”Maybe they weren’t sure if the humans would really be able to help them track us. They probably didn’t want to send in their whole fleet.”

”You mean …” The captain doesn’t finish the sentence. I just nod.

”They’re waiting for backup.”

The captain’s reaction is to choose a steeper path to enter orbit. The ship starts screeching as metal is heating up and protesting against the reckless utilization. None of us cares. We need to go down. We need to inform the others.

The landing spot comes in sight. The ground is covered with a soft, elastic substance, designed to break our fall. We’re racing towards it with a velocity almost twice as high as recommended.

I close my eyes and hope the engineers deliberately gave a lower threshold than necessary, to ensure that the substance could handle bigger forces in an emergency. _@suesa

They rarely do that.

The crash shakes the whole spaceship and we’re all violently thrown through the room. For a second I remember the human’s invention of a seatbelt which would have come in handy in this situation. Why did none of our inventors ever think of it?

To my endless relief, the substance breaks our fall and prevents us from being gooified. There might be some broken bones for several crew members and my right wing feels a bit painful, but we’re alive.

Right now.

We crawl out of the battered ship and are met by worried technicians, pilots and politicians.

”What happened?”, one of them asks.

”Splerions. They’re here. The humans betrayed us.”

There are no questions. I see the disappointment in many faces, they had obviously developed the same high hopes for humanity as I had. I form a fist with my right hand. I didn’t just develop hopes. I had considered them friends.

I had considered Rick a friend.

”How close are they?”

”Few thousand kilometers away from orbit”, the captain answers.

”So they managed to avoid all pheromone traps? Damn it. I guess we need to test the lighthouses.”

The lighthouses. Oh my.

The lighthouses are technology based on legends. Historians had discovered ancient texts talking about a foreign species very similar to the Splerions. In fact, it seemed like Splerions and Mystacinidans once shared a planet a long, long time ago. Nobody knows what exactly happened, how we ended up separated by several solar systems.

But the texts are there and they describe a way to distract the Splerions.

”Like a moth to a flame”, I mumble and one of the technicians gives me a quizzical look. ”A human idiom”, I say. ”They have non-sentient insects on their planet which are attracted to light. Some kind of convergent evolution I guess, different starting points with a similar outcome. Anyway, the idiom describes someone being attracted by something and not being able to fight the urge to follow it.”

”Then let’s hope the Splerions haven’t evolved away from it”, the technician says.

The order to turn on the lighthouses is transmitted. Time passes. Seemingly nothing happens but I know what’s going on. Giant sources of UV light are being activated through our system. This specific wavelength is supposed to be irresistibly attractive to the Splerions and cause them to steer their ships towards them.

That alone is already useful as it moves them away from our planet, but it’s not all. The lighthouses are surrounded by mines. Any ship that comes too close will explode in millions of tiny shreds.

Anxiously, I’m waiting for a positive message over the technician’s communication device.

Nothing.

Just

Silence.

”Here’s lighthouse control. It didn’t work. The Splerion ship in front of our planet didn’t move a bit. Instead, several other ships appeared. They now set course to the planet surface.”

Our last desperate attempt … likely countered by evolution. It wouldn’t make sense for an intelligent species to be drawn to intense light sources. I think I remember Rick saying that even the moths on earth are slowly evolving to ignore the lights.

Still, that’s it.

The Splerions’ ships are slowly entering orbit.

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References:

Why Are Moths Drawn to Artificial Lights?

Insect reactions to light and its applications to pest management

Why moths are attracted to light

Your porchlight is causing moths to evolve

Convergent evolution

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Picture taken from pixabay.com

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