Storytime Bloghop

Yes, it’s that time again. Here’s the Storytime Bloghop for June. This time we have 12 participants (including me) and their stories. Enjoy. Here’s mine

bloghop

Lobster One

“Lobster One. Report to base.” The voice from the loudspeaker crackled. The lonely bluish gray crustacean on the bridge sighed. Luckily the trip was nearly over, so he needn’t worry about repairing it any longer. His long-range sensors had already caught the data stream of a suitable planet.

“Lobster One reporting. Possible planet found. Commencing scouting endeavor. Requesting full weapon access.”

“The use of all weapons has been approved. Good luck, Lobster One.”

A few seconds later the vessel slowed and found a place in the orbit of the planet. It looked promising with its wide expanse of water. With a little terraforming it would surely not be a problem to submerge most of the land masses.

Lobster One observed the planet from above for four days. They were the hardest days of his voyage since he had to remain on high alert due to space junk. When is data scan was finally complete, he marvelled at the results. The planet was perfect except for one, minor detail. It held a semi-intelligent species, some kind of ape-like creature walking on two legs mostly warring against each other. Their weaponry would not suffice to stop an invading army from his home planet.

Lobster One decided it was time for a peek. Since the planet’s atmosphere was too thin for his breathing organs he ordered the ships transporter to deposit him in the middle off the biggest ocean. What was that? Why couldn’t he breathe? His handheld scanner showed that he was surrounded by water. He should not have difficulties breathing. Still his intake valves seemed to be clogged. He used up eight of the ten time intervals he could hold his breath to clean the valves and grab a water sample. Then he reprogrammed the transporter to deposit him in a different ocean. Thankfully he sucked in oxygen.

A strange undercurrent caught him unaware and pulled him along. The more he tried to escape the current, the faster it got. More and more crustaceans appeared around him. Although they were a lot smaller than him they resembled each other strongly. Just when he realized that the tiny creatures around him were not intelligent, they were lifted out of the water and dumped onto a big metal surface.

“Oh look, we caught a lobster!” His universal translator managed to make sense of the garbled noises of the ape-man. “Finally something better to eat then shrimps.”

Lobster One froze. These creatures ate crustaceans? What kind of world was this? Where there more predators specialized on cracking exoskeletons? With small sound that the ape-man didn’t even notice Lobster One activated the transporter and returned to his ship.

During the next three hours he set up a new scan with very specific parameters. It took the ship a whole week to complete.

The perfect planet he thought he had found was infested with creatures hunting and eating crustaceans. Commercial calculations showed that even if they eliminated the worst few species the whole ecosystem would collapse. Defeated, Lobster One reported his failure, set course to the next planet, and began to repair the loudspeaker.

____________________

Here are the links to the other stories. Enjoy them and please leave comments. We can only improve our craft if you let us know what works and what doesn’t. Thanks for reading.

S.R. Olson, Malakai’s Gift

Wendy Smyer Yu, Into The Light

Emily Plesner, Time Stops When I’m With You

Barbara Lund, Separate Space

Shana Blueming, A Melting Heart

Juneta Key, To Be Announced

Angela Wooldridge, Midwinter

Lee Lowery, All Aboard

Elizabeth McCleary, OverWhelmed

Viola Fury, The Day The Cat Got Out

Karen Lynn, Dragon Smoke and Wind

10 thoughts on “Storytime Bloghop”

  1. ViolaFury says:

    Wow! Dazzling! The end really caught me by surprise, and you misdirected the reader with the bit about the intake valves. Nicely done!

    1. Cat says:

      Glad you like it.

  2. Karen Lynn says:

    I’m a little relieved that I’m not going to be eliminated, although lobster aliens might have been fun to have around. I can really see this one being a good picture book, somehow. Lots of bright red lobsters in space helmets.

    1. Cat says:

      That’s an interesting idea. I might actually do that one day. 😀

  3. Lee Lowery says:

    So now I’ll have to wonder whenever I sit down to a lobster dinner – mission specialist, first mate or captain? Most amusing!

  4. *snicker* This is amusing. I agree – there are probably warning signs all over the galaxy that the inhabitants of this planet aren’t suitable company. We really need to get it together if we want visitors popping by. 😀

  5. You know, I often wonder if just beyond our perimeter there’s a big space sign saying; ‘planet interdicted, do not visit until they show signs of clearing their mess up’.
    Nice one Kat.
    🙂

    1. Cat says:

      I’m sure it’s a neon sign. 😀
      Thanks for the catches. I changed the words and deleted part of your comment because it suddenly didn’t make sense any more.

  6. S.R. Olson says:

    I’ll never look at a lobster the same again! LOL!

  7. Juneta says:

    Very entertaining, poor lobster. I also feel sorry for the ones in tanks in restaurants.

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