Blasted Futures, Secret Histories (SciFi Smackdown)

Round Two - The Adventures of Morley and Boots, Pt. 1

(Judges: I am entrant #3! My genre was "Space Western" and I had to use the pink Doc Martin and five quotes which are highlighted in bold. Enjoy! Feedback eagerly solicited. ;))

Mohr'lii leaned on the fence and sighed as he surveyed his herd. They grazed on the tough scrubs of his land in the cool air of a star-lit night. He'd gone all-in; spent everything he had on these two dozen head. With a little luck and some good weather, he'd be able to turn them over at the end of a couple seasons for as much as three thousand a head. That would be enough, he hoped, to pay off the loans and save a bit of extra for a ring. 

A soft breeze tickled Mohr'lii's gills and gave him a sense of things to come. The air was still dry. Probably no rain for another three, four months. He could go that long, but he worried about his herd. His new buffalumps had full, fat reserves now, but those would diminish soon enough. Mohr'lii tried to have some faith in his enterprise. His people had been ranching in this region for decades, and their herds always prospered. He just had to take it one day at a time, tend to the needs of his herd, and the money would come. He'd be out from under the thumb of the bank. And he could buy a ring. For her.

The breeze picked up strength. One or two of the buffalumps lifted their heads out of the grass and twitched their feathery gills as if feeling for something. Awfully cold breeze for this time of year. Mohr'lii thought. But he was new to the area. Maybe this was what the wind off the mountains feels like. Maybe this is a, what do they call them? A chinook. 

The wind picked up again and blew Mohr'lii's spare shirt off the line where it had been left to bleach in the sun earlier in the day. Mohr'lii swore in alarm. It was his only other shirt. He stepped off the porch to retrieve it and found himself staggered by another strong gust of wind. All the buffalumps had their heads raised now, and they huddling together to form a wall. Mohr'lii turned into the wind to see whatever it was they saw.

The wind chose that moment to emit a blast of scalding air accompanied by an ear-shattering roar and the thud of landing gear ramming into the hard-packed earth. Mohr'lii shielded his eyes from the blast of dust and grit, then peeked over his sleeve as the now-landed craft noisily released the locks on a hatch and rolled out a ramp.

The buffalumps panicked and bolted for the open plains. 

"Wait!" Mohr'lii screamed at them. The plains were pocked with grump-holes which the buffalumps were sure to step into and break legs. Ignoring the ship which had just landed in his front yard, he ran after his herd whistling and emitting pheromone packets, trying desperately to calm his animals before any were hurt. "Wait! Heeere Bessie, good 'lumps, come on girls! Heeeere!"

Something huge and metallic ran past Mohr'lii in the dark. Whump, whump, whump, the giant footfalls passed him leaving a miasma of scents in its wake: steel, engine grease, mammal... alcohol?

The ten-foot-tall mechanoid biped had enormous pincers and it extended one of these to grab a buffalumps around the middle. The buffalump lowed in panic it was picked up and tossed overhand into the gaping maw of the parked ship.

"What? What are you doing?" Mohr'lii turned on the mechanoid and noted that a strange mammal was sitting in the control cage. "No, stop! Wait, please, stop!" He waved both his arms over his head and ran towards the machine. It was grabbing his buffalumps two-fisted now, one then another then another, tossing them over its shoulder in a hail of fur and hoof. Mohr'lii got right in front of the mechanoid and jumped up and down screaming, "Stop! Stop! For the love of whatever you hold holy, STOP!!!"

"Out of the way, little man," a female voice blasted out of speakers mounted on the mechanoid's shoulders, and it nabbed a fifth buffalump, "I'm in a hurry."

Mohr'lii's jaw hung slack as he cast about, wild-eyed, for something to threaten the mechanoid or its driver with. "You can't do this!" he screeched, "Those are my herd! Please, oh God, put it down, wait! Please!!!"

"Were your herd," the mechanoid corrected, "You're being robbed, friend. Sorry and all that." She didn't sound very sorry at all.

Mohr'lii threw himself at the mechanoid, distraught. He caught the cold metal of the hyper-extending sprung legs in a close embrace and held on as if his life depended on it. "Noooo! Pleeeeease, I have nothing, nothing! You can't doooo this to meeee!" He released every pheromone he could think of up into the control cage.

"Get off!" the mechanoid jumped up and down a few times, rattling the teeth in Mohr'lii's head. He held fast. "Oooh, you are an annoying little man! I don't have time for this." Mohr'lii heard the hatch of the control cage unlock and open above him. He looked up to see a naked mammalian face framed with a halo of bright pink hair looking down at him in annoyance. "Fine, I will pay you. What do you use as currency on this barren dust-ball of a planet? Make it fucking snappy, little man, because I am a cunt's hair from just crushing you beneath my three-tonne foot. Talk!"

"Pay? What, I... Dokmar. We use Dokmar." 

"Dokmar - what, like paper chits? For fuck's sake man, I fly a space ship, not a printing press! What do you trade them for? What's your currency based on? Economic theory - remember some! Now!"

"Okay! Okay! I, we, WATER! We trade for water!" The female in the control cage looked amused. 

"Water? You're serious? Well, shit." Her face disappeared back into the cage and Mohr'lii heard the static blast of a comm being activated. "Marcie? I need a quick blast at 35.212, 78.992. No, 993. No, oh for fuck's sake use your discretion and see if you can avoid fucking killing me.  I know you're - yes, I know. Okay, yes, thank you. Water. Yes, just a few klicks cubed. Tah, darling!"

"Blast?" Mohr'lii cautiously removed himself from the mechanoid's leg. "What are you..."

Mohr'lii looked over his shoulder and saw a bright yellow flash light up the eastern sky. Mohr'lii had to shield his eyes but caught a brief glimpse of the column of fire that shot down out of the stratosphere. The following explosion knocked him off his feet and bombarded him with a hail of pebbles and debris. Just as he thought he was recovered, a second column, this time a gleaming column of water reflecting starlight, dropped out of the sky and he cowered again as he was showered by a very cold impromptu rain.

"There!" the female in the mechanoid declared, sounding very pleased with herself. "Your own bloody reservoir. I hope that'll pay for the cows, little man."

Mohr'lii stood slowly, his eyes growing wide. Where once he had 500 unbroken acres of dry scrubland, he now had a pond - a lake, an ocean! - of black water. So much water. Mohr'lii had never seen so much in one place. I'm rich. I am the richest man on the whole planet. In the sector! Oh my god, I made it! This is it! 

Then the rumbling started. Mohr'lii thought it was another blast from space, an earthquake maybe. He saw the mechanoid back off a few paces and heard the female shout,

"Wait, no! Bad Bessie! Bad cows - buffal-" and then the control cage snapped shut. Mohr'lii stood and turned just in time to see the remainder of his herd bearing down on him, stampeding away from the new reservoir. The first buffalump knocked him down and the world went black.