Harvest Day
Harappa is a doomed planet. Its death watch is going on right now. There are still a handful of mining drones working but no one lives there any more. People abandoned the world a long time ago. Astronomers are watching my Homeworld very closely. Its final collapse is expected within a few months. Some younger Kushans, mostly Earthborn are running pools on exactly when it will happen. Older Harappans like me who remember Harvest Day think that is just a little sick.
Harvest Day, sounds kinda nice doesn’t it? All Harappans remember Harvest Day with anger and some with hatred.
John Trenton Keller, another name seared into the memories of all Harappans of a certain age. He was the Captain of the starship, “Marcus Johnson”. It was his order that the ship’s weapon be fired at Paladin Thain.
It’s always about the illumaphane isn’t it? The mineral is essential for the starship drives. Earthers discovered traces of the stuff on a moon of Saturn in their starsystem and learned how to synthesize it in labs.
Harappa is full of the stuff. It is one of only eight planets found in the galaxy so far to have the mineral in abundance. We Harappans, did not know its importance or its uses. Marcus Johnson and his librarians studied it and discovered many of its strange properties but Harappan scientists did not know about the structure of the Gavaskar Field. So, we did not come up with faster than light travel.
When the Earthers found Harappa they were thrilled to find illumaphane in abundance. Their eyes went wide with greed. Unfortunately us Harappans were in the way. At least some of us.
Leadership in the city of Salus came to an agreement with the Earthers and the Earth/Salus Consortium was born. They originally planned to mine illumaphane in the Black Mountains just north of my home in the White Mountains.
They began a large road construction project through Clan territory. Paladin led a series of attacks on the project, some of them quite effective. The Consortium responded with a military assault. The SID force was turned back at the Battle of Welker Pass, but they launched an air attack on our village. It was a lose/lose day.
The Earth/Salus Consortium changed direction and started constructing a new mining site on the Farside of our planet.
Paladin determined that he could not fight the SID directly so with the help of Marcus Johnson’s librarians he set out to blow up a vein of illumaphane on Farside as a demonstration that we could seriously hinder their mining operations. While Paladin, Tony Gupta and Corey Sun were setting the charges Captain Keller sent a combat shuttle with a commando squad to stop Paladin.
Paladin and his companions dispatched the Earther commandos with ease so Captain Keller had his starship fire on the site from orbit. We all know what happened then.
Several large veins of the illumaphane ignited. The result of the explosion broke the bonds between Harappa and the gaseous Blue Moon sending the planet off its orbit and putting it on a spiral path towards its sun. A mountain range worth of debris went into the atmosphere and a planet wide tsunami radiated from the blast.
The tsunami destroyed Salus and parts of Caelum. Some of the smaller costal towns disappeared completely.
Some of the debris from the explosion went into orbit and started raining down to the surface.
Life on Harappa was different.
Then Dorian came home and saved us, leading us to Kusha.
For John Trenton Keller the incident was the end of his space career. He returned to Earth where his first officer Evelyn Fowler was given command of the “Marcus Johnson”. Keller was transferred to an SID station in the American prairies and was not heard from again.
This weekend on Kusha is the Kushan Yam Festival. Me and the rest of the Gutterminds will play on Sunday afternoon. On Monday I’ll tell you all about the event, from the wine tasting to the sporting events. Oh, and maybe a Kushan Yam recipe or two from the winners.
Philip Normer
Kushan Year 87
Earth Year 2479
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