“The day is coming, I could feel it. I can’t hide the truth forever. I have to come clean eventually. It’s only a matter of time before they try coming back, what do I do?”
It had been 8 years since I created the timber wolf to keep everyone safe. Everyone had settled in the the village proper, knowing that they were completely safe. The first children of the village had even been born 6 years ago, bumping the population up from 80 to 100. They were growing up knowing nothing but peace, learning the same way their parents did when they first started living here.
However, since that day, I have been worrying. Sure, Grogar was no longer a problem, but there was still another threat, humans. They could decide at any time to come back and reclaim their planet. Once they come back, nothing can stop them, they had superior technology, they had superior weapons. They could wipe out every new inhabitant of this planet and rebuild their home atop the bones of those who evolved to take their place.
Then, all of a sudden, a message came through. I was afraid of this, but I have no choice but to respond.
“This is PCB Colony calling earth, are you there Lugh?”
“I’m here, good to hear from you again.”
“I’m calling to give you a status update, greenhouse construction is complete, and we just finished installing the long range scanner. Now we can see for ourselves how earth is doing.”
“That’s not necessary, we’re doing fine.”
“Scan complete, that’s odd, only one electrical reading on the whole planet. What’s going on over there?”
“I, uh.”
“In fact, I’m not reading any electrical signals from any of the colonies either. That means everything is in fact not fine. Care to explain?”
“I can’t take this anymore, activating jamming signal.”
With that, I gathered a lot of power together, the satellite dish on top of my house activated.
“What’s going on, the scanner is encountering interference.”
“I know, I’m jamming it.”
“Why?”
“Because earth has moved on since you left.“
“That doesn’t explain why we’re not getting any electrical readings, are you saying something happened?”
“Yes, humanity failed, I’m still here because I’m making sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“So you’re saying that ww3 actually happened?”
“Yes, everyone is gone, humanity is officially an endangered species.”
“What! Are you getting this command?”
“Yes captain”, said another voice, “I’m informing the others and organizing a press conference.”
“I’ll get the science team working on scout ships to send back to earth.”
“Earth is no longer your planet, you’ve been gone for 500,000 years, new sentient species have evolved since then, they are all under my personal protection.”
“What? How are you still alive, who are you?!”
“My name is ***** **** ******** Sr.”
“The founder of Encore Innovations? But you died in 2102.”
“My mind was uploaded to a computer, I hold in my memory banks the remnants of humanity. Like I said, humanity failed. You are never allowed back here.”
“We don’t need your permission, once we figure out light speed travel, we’ll send ships back to earth to pick you up and bring you back. If you resist, we’ll wipe out those aliens that took our home and you along with them.”
With that, they hung up. That was concerning to say the least. Now I had to worry about the humans returning. When I turned my attention away from the signal, I saw Maple standing in the doorway, mouth wide open and eyes filled with fear.
“They going to kill us?!”
“No they’re not, I won’t let them return. If they try to come back, I’ll blow them out of the sky.”
“You taught me that violence is wrong, so why are you going back on your own teachings?”
“Because humanity is different, they let greed and hatred consume them, and it seems that they are no different now.”
“But why, you can stop them without killing them!”
After hearing that, I stopped. She was right, I was letting my anger towards them get in the way of what was right.
“You’re right”, I said after calming down, “I can’t kill them, but what can I do? They want to take me away and kill everyone.”
“Why don’t you just shield everyone so they can’t come here.”
“Good idea, it’ll take a few years to run the calculations, but I can shield the whole planet so they can’t land.”
I sighed, “But I’m worried, by my estimates, it’ll be 4000 years before they crack the secret to light speed travel. What if we’re not ready by then.”
“Well just worry about that later, for now, we should get back to helping the villagers.”
This is why I married her, because of her kind heart and brilliant mind. Now I could finally stop worrying.
When humans come back to earth, I’ll be ready. Until then, I would have my lovely wife, and a village to lead and protect.